Be Careful what you Desire
by Chimetals
Summary: An AU where Hina becomes OOO instead of Eiji. I recommend watching the first episode along with this chapter (laughs). No pairings or anything like that-just OOO with a different user.
1. Chapter 1

It was the worst day of Ankh's life. Yes, even worse than when he was sealed—he at least had a proper body then, as well as nine medals. Now, reduced to a single medal and only an arm, he was struggling to grab hold of the radiant light before him—a second red medal, centimeters from his fingertips. Some oaf had not only picked it up where Ankh and the other Greeed had been revived, but had managed to inadvertently evade Ankh's pursuits. He then had had the _gall_ to _drop_ it under some giant heavy box-thing—hell if Ankh knew what it was, but he couldn't quite squeeze under it—his wings were stuck on the edge, and he couldn't lift it, either.

The human had decided to retrieve the medal as well, tilting the box on its rear legs—reducing the space Ankh was trying to squeeze through, trapping him. Frustrated, the Greeed was forced to listen as his opponent called someone over and had them retrieve the medal. Slim, fragile-looking fingers slipped under the bane of Ankh's existence and deftly swept the medal out of his sight. The box was lowered soon after, and Ankh shot out from under it as swiftly as he could manage.

He had been trying to avoid confrontation so far, for many reasons. He had never seen so many humans in his life, and in such a weakened state, he wasn't sure if he could handle _one_ let alone a horde. Ankh was also unsure if they were more effective at fighting Greeed than before. Moreover, this was a completely different world than eight-hundred years ago, and he was on his own this time, having stolen some of the other Greeed's medals—he had stood against them before, but a former difference in allegiance was relatively forgivable. They had never gone after each other's medals before, as an unspoken law. Ankh needed them, however—he didn't have enough of his own medals to give power to the OOO driver, and a combo was dangerous, anyway—if he managed to find a human he could use, he didn't want them dying immediately.

At this rate, though, Ankh couldn't escape the risk required to retrieve his medal. He charged the two humans, despite being unsure which one had his medal. It didn't matter—the girl screamed and ran, while the guy Ankh had been chasing kicked him and followed suit. Like he had suspected, Ankh didn't have the power to fight a human in his current state, and the blow left him dazed longer than it should have. By the time he shook it off, both people were gone, and several people were nervously eyeing him from a distance. Focusing as best he could, he managed to locate the direction his second medal was in. Regardless of who had it, he needed to get it back, using any means at his disposal.

Hina hadn't _meant_ to take the weird coin, but there it was, still very much in her hand. The guy that had been trying to retrieve it had run in a different direction than her, and as she was left with no way to contact him, her best option was to bring it to her brother's police department's lost and found. She could at least describe its owner, although she figured she'd leave out the bit about a flying hand thing attacking her. Hina frowned—no, she couldn't leave that part out—how else would she explain how she got separated from the coin's owner?

She didn't have to ponder for long, as the rather disgruntled arm from before swooped down from above,

"Return my medal—" it caressed her face, clawed fingers tracing their way over her skin, "—I'll let you live until then."

Two things crossed Hina's mind—surprise that a disembodied hand could _talk_, and complete rejection of its demands. Moreover, wasn't asking for something and threatening death afterwards rather contradictory? Why not kill her and take it, or offer to spare her if she handed it over? No, something told her that this hand-monster _couldn't_ just take the medal, that she had the upper hand. And that meant that she didn't have to put up with its antics.

Hina grabbed the monster by the wrist and flung it away as hard as she could. It let out a grunt of pain as it collided with a nearby building, and she felt a little bad for it, in a way. She watched as it hit the ground, righted itself somewhat pathetically with its fingers, began levitating again, and seemed to shake itself off—she could have run, sure, but it had already proven able to find her—she was a bit curious, too, and as she clearly had the upper hand against this thing, she had nothing to fear.

Someone suddenly spoke up from behind her, catching Hina by surprise.

"The core medal… Hand it over." Medal? The weird coin? Why did everything seem to want it all of a sudden?

Hina turned around, only to discover that this voice's owner was much more grotesque than a floating arm—a sick fusion of mantis and human, it looked like something from a horror movie or a freak show. Instinctively, she recoiled—this one was a threat, if only because it had an actual body, and long, nasty-looking blades melded with its hands. She wasn't sure how she would escape when these things seemed able to track her, but simply giving them the coin—medal—seemed like a bad idea. No, she wasn't far from her brother's work—and probably the only place nearby with any kind of weapons.

The new monster started gathering energy or something along its blades—Hina didn't care what it was, but she was backpedaling as best she could without looking away from her enemy—she had an obstacle course of tables and pillars around her, but she had no chance of dodging whatever attack this thing threw if she wasn't watching it closely. Even so, she was caught off-guard when the monster fired several projectile beams at her—surely, movies had taught her that supernatural attacks needed to look more intense than that to be launched—and with a pillar to her left and an ill-placed table to her right, panicked indecision struck her.

The attack, however, did not.

Hina flinched in anticipation, but when she took a second look at her opponent, the arm from before stood between her and the new monster—and it seemed to have defended her.

"_Ankh_." The new monster spat at her savior—his name?

"Don't stick your hand in this," Ankh scolded the mantis-creature. Hina squeezed the medal in her hand protectively—she had no idea what was going on, nor why these monsters wanted the medal, but without it, she wouldn't have been saved just now. She needed to think quickly, though—from firsthand experience, she knew Ankh couldn't put much of a fight.

Sure enough, the newcomer had little difficulty knocking the arm away—Ankh managed to parry a few blows, but mass was very much against him, and Hina's earlier assault had taken its toll. Unable to even levitate, he was completely at the mantis's mercy as it knocked him around violently. Hina winced empathetically—no matter how rude or strange, it was a weak creature, and the beating it was getting would have seemed cruel on even a much stronger opponent. With these thoughts, she joined the fray—this time, the element of surprise was on her side. She grabbed the monster, being careful of its blades, and jerked it away from its victim with all her strength. She might be self-conscious about it, but was glad to have that power for crisis situations—and it was rather effective, catching the mantis off-balance.

Unfortunately, holding a large, armed, squirming and irritated monster was out of her expertise, and the sudden shift in momentum gave the mantis an opening to knock her away. It had the advantage now, and having deemed Ankh as no longer a threat, was coming after her. Survival instincts in full-throttle, she tried to find an opening in the opponent—but had no idea what to look for in the first place. The sound of gunshots interrupted her thoughts and the mantis's approach, and they both looked to the source of the noise—a black police car with a red flashing light on top, and the shooter, a balding middle-aged man leaning out the window.

_No. Not that car. _Anything _but _that _car._

The monster shrugged off the bullets and re-oriented itself. Something inside her screamed at Hina that this wasn't going to end well, that she needed to attack the mantis before the car got any closer—but for all her inhuman strength, she had only the defensive endurance her appearance suggested, and she couldn't even get up in time. The monster landed a solid hit on the car, causing it to swerve and wreck. Disbelief and anger flooded Hina—the mantis had made a grave mistake—the car it had attacked was her brother's.

Neglecting all survival instinct, she ran toward her brother's side of the car as best she could. Shingo had managed to get out of the car and drag himself a short distance towards the monster, gun in hand, but his injuries had left him out cold. Hina could only see a little blood on his face—too little, in fact—it meant most of the injuries were internal, and of a much more serious nature. She looked up at the sound of footsteps—the mantis was advancing toward them, readying another attack. Faced with a decision, Hina did the only thing that she could.

She planted herself firmly in front of her brother, ready to defend him using any method at her disposal.

What—exactly—that meant, Hina wasn't sure, but the mantis's approach was interrupted by Ankh, sparing her from having to formulate something. It was a hit-and-run attack, a brief assault to the face before flying to Hina's side.

"What's your name?" he asked, catching her off guard.

She saw no reason to lie, but was now really the best time? "Hina Izumi."

"Hina." He seemed to mull the sound of her name over, "You've impressed me. I'll lend a hand."

She was taken aback—what part of this situation called for _puns_?! It made her want to launch her new ally into a wall again. If Ankh noticed these thoughts, he didn't show any sign of it, as he produced a weird rock—somehow—from inside him, and pressed it to Hina's stomach. She spared it a glance—rectangular and boxy, with three slots. It started glowing and the rock shattered—just an outer shell. A band extended around her waist, and a thick Frisbee and a tiny round chest materialized on either side of her. It was heavy, surprisingly so, and she wasn't sure what this toolbelt-like contraption was supposed to do against a monster.

"The seal—why do you have that?!" The mantis seemed surprised at the toolbelt's appearance.

Ankh turned toward their opponent, his attitude sounding like he hadn't taken a severe beating only moments ago, "My hand held more than just core medals."

_Seriously?_ Was he never going to stop?

With a twist of the wrist, he produced two more medals—one green and one yellow—and pressed them into Hina's hand. He pointed at the belt around her waist, "put them in there, and—" he grabbed the Frisbee from her side, "—scan them with this."

Hina eyed him skeptically—no matter what he said to do with it, the disc used for scanning looked an awful lot like a children's toy. Still, she fumbled the medals into the three slots on the belt; they had lines on the back, corresponding to lines on the tops of the slots—and took the scanner from Ankh. He dropped down and gave the belt a twist, moving as Hina mercilessly brought the scanner down across the slots.

Hina jumped as the belt started _yelling_ animal names at her. The shock was replaced with confusion as it started _singing_ and launching an accompanying light show. A sort of suit materialized around her—tight, but comfortable, like an extension of her own skin. Before anything else, though, one question mercilessly nagged at Hina;

"Ankh... What was that _song_?"

"Don't worry about it—just fight."

Hina let out a frustrated sigh, but her brother's clock was ticking, and the sooner she took this monster out, the sooner she could get him medical help.

This wasn't how she had wanted her day to go. She just wanted to greet her brother when he came home from work, to tell him about the new part-time work she had gotten, all the themed clothes she would be able to wear because of it—she clenched her fists and charged the mantis. And what had her brother ever done to deserve this? He was an honest cop, after all, a hard worker and idolized as a hero by all the kids that knew him. It was a general feeling, directed at the world, but in front of her stood the perfect target for her wrath. She had never been this frustrated and angry before, and so she had never known how satisfactory a fight could feel. No, with her strength, she'd avoid a fight with a pacifistic rigor, for the other person's sake—but against a monster with no qualms about injuring others? She had no issues going all-out.

Hina brought her fists down again and again, not even noticing when the suit extended its claws and turned her punches into slashes and stabs. She gathered all her emotions in one last blow, shattering her opponent into hundreds of silver medals. Satisfied with her work, she fiddled with the belt, finally getting it to twist back to its original position and dissipate the suit. This would probably go down as the weirdest day in her life, and Hina was sure her brother would like hearing her side of it, once the hospital was done treating him. She pulled out her phone and punched in the hospital's number, turning to check on Shingo.

She noted with a dreamlike clarity the feeling of the decorative charms sliding over the back of her hand as her phone slid out of her grasp and clattered on the ground. What stood in front of her certainly looked like Hina's older brother, with two exceptions—the golden hair inexplicably covering not-quite-his-entire-head, and the now-familiar monster forearm replacing part of his right arm. Hina mentally returned to battle mode. Her brother was off limits, and no matter what the situation was, she was not going to stand for this.

Ankh, in all his smug glory, was even admiring how his normal body looked against the rest of Shingo's arm—how it moved, turned, the way light reflected off of it. Hina seized the opportunity—or rather, the foreign hand—and yanked this strange parasite off Shingo. Simultaneously she reprimanded Ankh,

"Leave my bro-" the artificial consciousness removed, her sibling collapsed, and Hina barely managed to catch him, "-ther… alone." She frowned, somewhat taken aback by the situation.

"Tch. Are you sure you want to do that?" Despite being held, Ankh gestured as he spoke. Hina could feel the movement in the forearm, and the realization that she was holding something's random body part was creepy. "Without me, he'll die in a few minutes." Shingo's unconscious face said nothing to counter that statement.

"And how, exactly, do _you_ prevent that?"

Ankh turned his palm upwards-the hand equivalent of a shrug. "How should I know?"

Angrily, she released Ankh—something told her that he wasn't lying. Hina gave her brother one last, long look—he looked so peaceful—but he also looked very delicate. Very breakable. She turned toward Ankh, floating quietly—just out of arm's reach, she noted. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Realizing Ankh wasn't moving, she made a gesture towards her brother, as if to say 'Well? Are you going to do this or not?'. The way Ankh moved to return to Shingo's body was surprisingly satisfying—he was cautious, almost humble about it. Yes, he needed Shingo about as much as Shingo needed him. Hina just had to put up with his apparent attitude until her brother recovered—being possessed probably didn't affect cell division, after all.

Sometimes, the best things happen in a crisis. At least, that was how it felt to Ankh. He hadn't expected the new OOO user to be a girl, but she was only the second person to use it—who was to say it didn't suit her. And oh, did it suit her. Hina had ripped apart a Yummy like it was second nature—the evidence of this was scattered at Ankh's feet. Under her wary gaze, he strolled over to the cell medals with his new body, squatting to pick them up. Having a body was nice. Having a _human_ body was even nicer; the world was a lot warmer, a lot brighter—a lot _more_.

Hina didn't—couldn't—understand how jarring being separated from this body was; the senses he had with only one medal—there was more visual clarity in swamp water. His other senses were similarly elusive—touch was limited to "pain" and "not pain", smell simply didn't exist, and what passed for hearing sounded like—Ankh paused, unsure of something that _normally_ sounded that bad. _A cheap radio, only half-tuned to the station_, something whispered to him. _A radio—what's a radio? What does that sound like?_ Memories suddenly flooded him—knowledge, irrelevant information, general understanding—he could access his host's mind. He could _survive_ in this world so foreign to him. Ankh smiled and absentmindedly picked up another medal, only to feel it tug back.

A tiny bird stared at him from across the cell medal. Ankh frowned. Some birds liked shiny things, sure, but this was not one of those birds. Not a bird he knew, at least. _What's that?_ he prodded, but there was no response—it was unfamiliar to Shingo, too. Ankh settled for glaring at the bird until a flock of flapping wings drew his attention away—the bird had friends, those friends had medals, and those medals were being flown away. Ankh snarled—suddenly the fight for this lone cell medal became that much more important.

It was a tug-o-war that Ankh lost—scales and talons were no match for the bird's grip, and it was deceptively strong. He whipped his attention back to Hina.

"What was _that_?!"

She shook her head in response. Ugh. Someone was after the medals, Ankh didn't have a clue who, and apparently it wasn't something the average human knew about. He'd find out eventually, he was sure of it, but being robbed of his spoils was still infuriating.

He wanted to storm off, to feel like he was making progress by relocating, but he couldn't leave his OOO user, now that he found one. Instead, he began ransacking Shingo's mind while Hina called an ambulance for the other officer in the car wreck. Humans had come a long way while he had been sealed, and possessing this knowledge gave him an advantage over the other Greeed. It was a sufficient distraction for all of five minutes-he then resorted to pacing irritably until Hina finished up with the EMTs.

"Let's go home," Hina announced suddenly, "I bet brother hasn't eaten yet. Besides-" she cut off Ankh before he could protest, "you have a lot of explaining to do."

The Izumi apartment was carefully maintained-by Hina, Shingo's mind added-with the only clutter localized to his room. It would be re-purposed as Ankh's room, and he was free to rearrange the contents as long as he threw nothing out. He wasted no time in extracting a new phone from Shingo's hiding place for it, much to Hina's anticlimactic dismay-such purchases were clearly commonplace for her brother. As he wasn't present, though, she couldn't scold him this time.

Hina began cooking, with Ankh frequently snacking on the raw ingredients. As she worked, she pestered him with questions-what was he, what was the monster she fought, were they the same thing-and many more that Ankh answered with varying degrees of irritation and scorn. She had quite the attitude with him, despite it all, but he didn't regret choosing her for OOO. After all, he held her precious brother's life in his hand-she would at least listen to him, if not obey completely. It was much better than, say, someone whose morals would make them concerned for a stranger's life. That kind of righteous attitude could interfere with Ankh's agenda rapidly.

They were both quiet through the first few minutes of dinner—Ankh savoring his newfound sense of taste, Hina mulling over the situation. She was the first to break the silence.

"So why, exactly, aren't you with the other Greeed?"

Ankh decided that eating was considerably more enjoyable than answering. Hina didn't let up.

"Why are you helping me?"

Ankh snorted derisively. "Don't get full of yourself. _You're_ helping _me_." Hina took another bite of her meal and chewed thoughtfully before replying.

"Why is your situation so bad that you can't ask the other Greeed for help?" When Ankh ignored her, she continued, "Why do you need the help of a _human_ when you're supposedly so powerful?"

Why did she have to be so _perceptive_?

"That doesn't concern you—just worry about fighting Yummies."

Hina glared at him, but didn't pursue the topic.

The next day, Hina realized she had forgotten something rather important—the guy that had had Ankh's core medal in the first place. She couldn't exactly return the medal—even if she had it in her possession, Ankh would probably attack him to get it back, and she'd rather not have her brother charged with assault. Unfortunately, Hina only realized this problem when she went to her part time job—and found the person in question working there.

They recognized each other at the same time. Hina was thinking of how to apologize for the medal when he started speaking excitedly.

"I'm so glad you're okay—"

_What._

"—I looked for you after we split up, but you lost me completely." He let out a relaxed laugh, "Ah, I never introduced myself, did I?" he had a really free smile, Hina thought. And yet, he gave off the feeling of someone that knew the world. "I'm Eiji Hino."

"Hina… Izumi." Hina was still reeling from his unexpected response, "About that medal you found, um," _some crazy monster actually owns it_, "did you happen to just find that somewhere, or-?"

Eiji nodded, "So it's a 'medal'? Mmn, I thought it seemed a bit large for a coin. Oh-" a customer walked in behind Hina, and they both remembered that they were supposed to be _working_ at this café.

Hina gave her new co-worker a smile, "I'll go get changed." Eiji nodded and waved back before attending the customers.

The shift went smoothly, and Chiyoko, the manager, proved to be easy to work with—that Hina and Eiji had a knack for service was a bonus. During lulls in seating and food orders, Hina managed to piece together Eiji's situation. He had wandered the world, more often than not with only the clothes on his back. He spoke several languages, but only at a rudimentary level—he had no formal education in any of them, and most of his teachers had been children; they were patient and curious enough to put up with a weird foreigner that couldn't communicate well. He had come back to earn funds for more travel—or so he said. He couldn't seem to make eye contact when he talked about it, which seemed odd for his otherwise earnest nature.

Eiji's side of Hina's weird little story was—as expected—much tamer than her own. While he had been in the area when the Greeeds were revived, he had been out cold. As far as he knew, a gas main had exploded, he woke up holding the medal, and then a flying hand had attacked him out of nowhere. They laughed about how strange it all was as they bussed tables and helped with closing the café. Hina couldn't bring herself to even _try_ to explain her side of the story. Instead she settled on a similar tale—she didn't see Ankh after running away, and couldn't find Eiji afterwards, but happened upon "the original owner of the medal".

When he said "It's so good that you found him!" with an honest smile, she wanted to tell him the full truth—but then what? If she mentioned OOO, he'd probably want to spare her from the fighting. She had already decided to fight for her brother's sake—it was something that had nothing to do with Eiji. In fact, if circumstances had been different—namely, Ankh pursuing Eiji instead of Hina—Shingo would have died.

Her decision made, Hina nodded to herself as she finished wiping a table. Behind her, she heard the door open, and Eiji calling out to whoever had ignored the café's operating hours sign.

"Sorry, right now we're-" he recognized the person—a pleasant surprise, "-Detective?"

With a wince, Hina realized that she knew _exactly_ who had just walked in. Sure enough, when she whirled around, Eiji was chatting excitedly at an incredulous-looking Ankh.

Hina had to act quickly, and that meant not thinking when talking.

"Eiji, this is Ankh. He looks a lot like my brother, doesn't he?" she smiled—reassuringly to Eiji, threateningly to Ankh—the latter needed to keep his mouth shut if she was going to dig herself out of this one.

"You have a brother, Hina?"

"He's a police detective—actually, he mentioned you, now that I think of it. Back when, uh-" she pretended to be recalling a story, but was really stalling for time, "-that gas line exploded, I think?" Eiji nodded as she spoke, "Yeah, that was it."

Eiji looked back at Ankh thoughtfully. For the first time, Hina was thankful for his bizarre hair—it would help sell whatever insane lies she spun.

"Then… You said this _isn't_ your brother?"

Hina forced a laugh, "it's a weird resemblance, isn't it? He's the owner of that weird coin you found-"

Ankh gave her an offended look for calling his medal a 'weird coin', but she didn't notice—she was too busy trying to pre-maturely explain Ankh's quirks.

"-Actually, he's a foreigner." Hina smiled and nodded energetically, but was internally kicking herself—_that was the most unnatural topic change I have heard in my life_. At least she had explained his hair color—but what about his behavior?

"His language skills and manners are awful so please excuse him if he says or does anything weird." _But why? _"He was abandoned as a child."

Hina knew she was sunk. Being a foreigner would automatically excuse rude lingual quirks—Eiji of all people would understand that—so _why_ had she added that last bit?! It made no sense, yet Hina was going to have to sell it.

"He grew up in the slums—poor thing, my brother found him during one of his shifts and brought him home… a week ago." She might as well walk out the door with Ankh right now and never come back—no one in their right mind would believe this garbage.

And yet, Eiji's expression said that he had. He pitied this weird, abandoned, foreign slum kid. So did Chiyoko, apparently, as Hina heard her boss sniffle back tears in the other room. It was completely insane—and she was going to have to live this lie until her brother didn't need Ankh anymore. She was so shocked at her success that Ankh had to shake her shoulder to get her attention.

"Hina. Yummy." He whispered to her while giving the now-emotional Eiji a bewildered glare.

Chiyoko poked her head out from the hall, "Go on ahead, Hina, we can handle the rest—don't worry about a thing."

Still dazed, she excused herself and left with Ankh.


	2. Chapter 2

The next few weeks flew by efficiently—Hina had no problems defeating Yummies, and held her own against even Greeed, though she couldn't put those down permanently. She had no issues with the suit's defensive abilities, but that's not to say she didn't have complaints. To begin with, nothing about the suit was flattering—gaudy _and_ formfitting, as she put it, and left nothing to the imagination. She even tried dieting at one point—Shingo was the one to notice the change in her eating habits—Ankh berated the decision as moronic and counter-productive. She stopped after he accidentally made some valid points about no one caring when Yummies were assaulting them.

Work went smoothly as well, with Ankh dropping by to pick her up more often than not. Hina's story panned out well for him; Chiyoko brought him meals to eat while he waited for her shift to end, and Eiji spoiled him-Hina suspected it was just how he treated his foreign language teachers. Regardless, he was the one that introduced Ankh to ice-pops, resulting in the closest thing to friendship she had ever seen the Greeed express. He rarely complained about Eiji's treatment of him, and the way he'd quiet down and passively endure language and manners lessons because he had an ice-pop to eat was actually quite endearing. Hina went out of her way to "forget" to buy them at the grocery store or outright claim that Ankh ate too many just to preserve the phenomenon.

Ankh only found two issues with Hina—the first was that no matter how he explained OOO to her, the idea that it gave "power" never made sense to her—with her freakish strength, OOO was apparently unable to supplement her much in that aspect. She understood its defensive additions, though, as well as the tactical advantage the hawk medal lent—the ability to read enemy movements and locate weak points. That she didn't need its offensive boost meant, however, that she would charge into a fight with neither Ankh's support nor OOO if someone was in danger—and was fairly effective at it. To make matters worse for her sponsoring Greeed, after a few fights she was able to estimate the same information the hawk medal supplied. When she managed to rip apart a Yummy without the aid of OOO, Ankh caved and let her carry the Tatoba combo—if she was going to decimate his Yummies early anyway, it was better for her to not get hurt in the process.

Eventually, the third party in the battle reared their head: the energetic Kougami, with an unexplained obsession with birthdays, cakes, and cell medals. Ankh disliked him on principle, and then he opened his mouth. Hina appreciated the support, however, but couldn't deny that his motives were suspicious at best. Still, he was human, and therefore relatively harmless. Probably. Either way, the ridevendors and candroids were too useful to pass up, as far as Hina was concerned. Ankh attempted to argue against it, but wasn't helped by Hina finding the candroids adorable; he gave up when she brought one of each candroid back to the apartment over several days. Despite her behavior, she _had_ listened to the Greeed, and otherwise used cell medals sparingly.

Hina got along with Kougami's two employees, despite their personalities being night and day. Gotou was a serious type that didn't say much, but if Hina had to guess, he had two barely restrained frustrations—namely, his employer and his co-worker, Date. The latter was every bit as energetic as their boss, and potentially just as eccentric. A cheery sort, he had an obsession with getting rich and tended to call Hina's actions "cute". He was also the one to start dropping hints about a Kougami-aligned fighter aiding OOO in battle, although his descriptions were less-than-useful. Namely, "She's cute, just like Hina"-which said nothing about combat capability, training, or disposition toward teamwork.

The suspense from Date's hints didn't last long, as Birth and its user made an appearance soon after. Satonaka wasn't hard to work _with_, but Hina quickly discovered that it was hard to get her to _do_ work. It was a trait that wasn't apparent at first, but quickly surfaced when the Birth user started frequenting Cous Coussier on her lunch breaks. The first time a Yummy attacked in this situation, she merely glanced at her phone, decided break wasn't over, and resumed sipping her coffee as Hina sprinted out the door in an Elizabethan-style dress. Work was the only problem between the two girls, however, as Hina quickly stumbled across Satonaka's fashion passion. The latter even offered to let the OOO user borrow some of her clothes, but Hina turned her down—she didn't possess the same nerve that allowed Satonaka to dress so boldly.

Satonaka's personality quirk wound up being an odd bonding point for Hina and Gotou, who—it turned out—had been passed over for the selection of Birth's user. To Gotou's diligent personality and dedication to his work, Satonaka's habits became increasingly offensive—she got results, yes, but she got them on her own time.

One night, at Date's recommendation, they had gone to a particular oden stand for dinner. Gotou had had a particularly rough day; he had more or less been put on "Satonaka duty" due to his personality. The theory was that his strictness would spur her to work overtime, even if only by a few minutes. In practice, it only resulted in a Gotou with highly pressurized frustrations. And a Gotou with highly pressurized frustrations tended to throw back quite a few drinks, it seemed.

The oden itself was delicious, though-Date knew his stuff-and it was a few minutes of eating before anyone felt the need to speak.

"That kind of personality shouldn't be put in a position of power!" Gotou snarled abruptly.

"She seems pretty good at it to me." Ankh chimed in bitterly. Despite Hina's best efforts and combat experience, Satonaka was an opportunist that would often seize an entire Yummy's worth of cell medals in one sweep. It was understandable—she was paid by the medal. Still, she was physically normal, and sometimes Hina had to help carry the medals back to Kougami's office, where she at least got a portion of the spoils to take back to Ankh. It was never _enough_ medals, though—that they were practically hand-outs was insult to injury.

"That isn't the issue," Gotou hissed, "She's a danger to everyone that relies on her in any way."

"Oh?" Date perked up, "Sounds like you're speaking from experience?"

"I was the _leader_ of an _elitesquad_," the other man snapped, slamming a fist on the counter. Date shrugged a bemused "so?", earning a glare from Gotou.

"You _were_ the leader of an elite squad…" Hina murmured, almost to herself. If he had been demoted for some reason, it was none of her business, but the need to ask nagged at her, "What happened?" Gotou's anger tempered down at this. He sighed, staring down his glass.

"The Greeed happened. Everyone was maimed, hospitalized, or killed in only a few minutes." He studied how the light diffracted in his drink in silence. "I'm the only survivor" he added quietly.

"I'm sorry." Hina hadn't expecting such a morbid answer. It was hard to look at him now, after asking such a painful question.

"No," Gotou's expression was calm, "Our research on the medals led us to severely underestimate the Greeed's power. Every one of us walked into that battle prepared to die, but with the belief that we would succeed. Forget manpower, training, or strategy—we simply didn't have the equipment we needed." He sighed, and his previous anger began to show through the cracks in his calm demeanor, smoldering like a fire in a coal mine. "What we needed was Birth."

No one pushed for more, nor was the topic brought up again. From then on, however, Gotou seemed to double his efforts to support OOO, as if to compensate for Satonaka's absence. His ability to contribute directly was extremely limited—he of all people knew what a Greeed or Yummy could do to a normal human. Still, Hina noticed the increased frequency with which her opponent would be distracted in a critical moment—whether it be by gunfire, candroid, or the occasional thrown object—allowing her to escape a tight situation or deliver the finishing blow. It was clear Gotou considered her one of his men; at the same time, his drive stemmed from something deeper and slower-burning than the flare of desperate atonement. Hina eventually concluded that this was the real Gotou—the leader—and not the seething, feral creature he was when they met.

Not to say that the feral Gotou wasn't entirely gone, as Hina discovered after a major defeat. An ill-timed attack during Satonaka's break time had left OOO stranded against Mezool and Gamel, with only Gotou and Ankh for support. Hina had been knocked out of her transformation and had two of her medals stolen before Ankh and Gotou finished unleashing the entire contents of a ridevendor on the Greeed so she could escape. Even then, all three of them had suffered injuries—that they weren't serious was beside the point.

They had returned to the Izumi apartment to treat their scrapes and bruises, where Gotou had insisted on treating Hina before anyone else, citing her twisted wrist as the reason. It had stopped hurting before they even got to her street, but she let him do as he wanted-it was nice to be so well-cared for, after all. Besides, it wasn't like Ankh would volunteer to do it, nor would Hina want him to.

"I'm going to quit." Gotou had been treating Hina in silence, wrapping her scraped shin with disinfectant and gauze. "I thought you should be the first to know." he finished his work and checked her expression with resolute eyes-Hina wouldn't be able to dissuade him if she wanted. She understood; that he had put up with Satonaka for so long was a miracle in itself-to ask for more from him was insane.

"Do you need somewhere to stay? While you're not working, I mean."

"Chiyoko actually offered me a job at Cous Coussier-hold still, let me get that scratch on your face." Hina suppressed a wince while Gotou dabbed alcohol on the wound-surely she could handle _that_ much pain, and she didn't need _more_ of his concern.

As Gotou applied a bandage to her cheek, she spared a glance to see how Ankh was handling her brother's injuries. His work was sloppy at best, and already falling off his body in most places. Hina sighed, resigned to treating him like an incompetent child. She never expected her cover story to appear so accurate, but Ankh had proved it at every turn since she met him, and now was no exception. She got up and went to help the Greeed, forcing Gotou to tend his own injuries in the process.

"Honestly, Ankh, my brother had this sort of thing down to an art."

"Do I _look_ like your brother?"

Hina raised her eyebrows at him, but didn't comment on the obvious, "didn't you say you could access his memories?"

The Greeed didn't respond, but made a disgruntled face at her before resigning himself to being treated.

Gotou had gone rogue, relative to Kougami, but it didn't take long for him to rejoin fights as OOO's support. He was something of a manual junkie, and therefore knew the ridevendors inside and out-including the button combinations needed to summon an army of candroids without a single cell medal. The ridevendors had to be reprogrammed individually and manually, too, so it wasn't likely that the codes would be changed.

Gotou's support was reassuring to Hina, but not as much to Ankh, whose own problems were quickly multiplying. Shingo's consciousness had been present since he took over the detective's body, but recently it had started trying to _do_ things, like protect Hina or participate in decisions and discussions. It was distracting and annoying, and _damnit all_, this was currently _his_ body, not Shingo's. To make matters worse, the latest Yummy's behavior seemed suspiciously like one of his own. He couldn't make Yummies-he had tried multiple times-and while Hina _might_ believe him, Gotou was more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. Whether or not they listened to him, though, wouldn't change that _someone_ was running around with _his_ core medals.

Bird Yummies were particularly disastrous-Ankh still remembered how an entire village lost their eyes for a blind girl's desire to see. They were prone to self-destructing, as well; their hosts' desires were forced upon them until the desire itself vanished, often driving the human insane in the process. The Greeed didn't care about that as much as the fact that they were strategically nasty; a boon when they were his Yummies, but a threat now that they opposed him-a flying target was much harder for a ground-based OOO to fight.

As expected, Hina confronted him after engaging the Yummy in combat for the first time.

"Start talking, Ankh. Why was that one a bird." Even her questions came out like demands. How elegant.

"How would I know?" he walked off with the intention of finding a snack; Ankh had enough problems, and figuring out how another Greeed with his powers existed was not one he wanted to bother with. If they were using his medals, then it would be enough to re-absorb that Greeed-who cared _how_ they came into existence?

"Better question: why hadn't a bird Yummy shown up before now?" Ankh paused and turned back to Hina-she had gotten his attention, and possibly stumbled on something good.

From her view, he had should have been making bird Yummies from the day they met-he had no reason to not make them earlier than now. That same thought held for this other Greeed, though-why _hadn't_ they been making Yummies? Why now?

"Maybe that's it…" he muttered to himself. Hina gave him an interrogatory stare. He caved, giving the simplest explanation he could think of. It was a weird and unlikely situation, but the odds of it being a new, bird-based Greeed with their own set of medals was slim. "When I was sealed with the other Greeed… My body might not have been entirely sealed. If the other cores were left out, they'd feel complete on their own, but by taking one away-"  
"It'd be like a set of nine after the tenth medal was removed, right?" Hina finished for him. He nodded,

"Something that shouldn't even _exist _has my medals. We need them back. _All_ of them." Hina frowned,  
"What will happen to him?" Ohhhh he was _not _getting into this now. Stupid humans and their stupid morals.

"Who cares? He's not supposed to exist." Every word was crisp and irritated. "At all," he added for good measure.

"Can't you both just live with fewer medals?" That was the dumbest thing Hina had ever said to Ankh, and his expression let her know that.

"Medals are _life_, Hina, _life_." he couldn't say more than that-trying to explain how he experienced the world to a human was simply impossible. "It's him or me, and only one of us is keeping your precious brother alive, _remember_?" Hina was silent for a moment, but rather than drop the conversation, she changed the topic.

"What are you getting out of all this, Ankh? What's _your_ goal?" He let out a derisive bark of a laugh,

"I want a complete revival. Nothing more, nothing less."

After that, life went smoothly for a while, until an unusually worn Date came to the cafe with a message for Gotou.

"We need you to do the maintenance for Birth."

"No." Gotou had been rather at peace with life, but that request had immediately brought back his former fury. Yet, he still believed in the cause his men fought for. "Why?"

"Maki left. Basically blew up the lab, too." Gotou had been trying to enjoy a coffee, but this caught his full attention.

"He _what_?"

Date's usually amiable expression was dark, "He allied himself with the Greeed."

Those were the magic words for Gotou, though they didn't take effect immediately-maintaining Birth was essentially supporting Satonaka's problematic behavior, but neglecting it was denying Hina effective support. He didn't like to admit it, but his well-timed candroid swarms weren't nearly as useful as a badly-timed crane arm.

"Chiyoko... An emergency just came up, and I'm afraid I need to resign." With only that, Gotou left his cooling cup of coffee on the counter and followed Date back to his new lab. He wouldn't be back for a while; he had a lot of work to do.

Looking back, this was when Hina first noticed something wrong with Eiji. He was spacier, taking orders wrong and sometimes not responding after having his name called twice. He squinted when he had to read something, and fumbled dishes more. He didn't mention any problems, though, and everyone just assumed that he wasn't getting enough rest-which was also true; he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in a while. Not that anyone could have realized the situation at the time. Hina, in particular, had more imminent problems, and they struck one after another.

The first was the Greeed; Hina's opponents had become more motivated, even before Maki joined them, making aggressive hybrid Yummies that were often tricky to deal with. They were also more likely to fight OOO themselves, often alongside their Yummies, and sometimes alongside each other. This was compounded by the newer bird Yummies, which were significantly more mobile than the other four types, and involved a lot more victims in a widespread area. Their creator making an appearance didn't help in any way-his constant attempts on Ankh's-and consequently Shingo's-life meant that Hina had to keep a close eye on her Greeed ally in every battle, on the off chance that the other Ankh would leap into the fray and attack his older half. Consequently, she was vulnerable to her opponents' attacks more often, and had to patch herself up after more battles.

As the situation had stabilized, or at least couldn't get worse, Hina had invited Eiji to dinner at her apartment-a thank you for essentially babysitting Ankh all the time. Having unofficially glued himself to Hina's side, Ankh had waited at the restaurant during Hina's shift, and now walked behind the pair of humans. With this position, he was the only one to notice that something caught Eiji's attention before any of them heard the screaming. Instinctively, the OOO user began sprinting in that direction, and was surprised to find Eiji doing the same. She didn't want to waste time dissuading him from following her, but if this kept up, she would have some explaining to do.

They quickly arrived at a small theme park-the people escaping in a panic denoted it as the right place. With no obvious Yummy running about, Hina checked the sky-great, _two_ flying Yummies. Still, something felt off; the screaming and panic was too widespread, too excessive, even for two Yummies. No, if all five Greeed rampaged with five-maybe even _ten_-Yummies, it _still _might not affect this many people. The people running by, what were they saying? _Something about a deadly fog_. Hina turned her eyes back to the sky as she grabbed Eiji by the arm, slowing him down. Sure enough, the Yummies were trailing smoke; it would have seemed innocent, like a message plane, if it wasn't a murky color that alluded to its deadly capabilities.

"Those things-" she pointed at the Yummies, "-are putting out some sort of lethal gas. We need to be careful, okay?"

She turned to check if Eiji understood the danger level, if it had _really_ sunk in; what she saw written in his expression shocked her. The closest thing she had seen to it was Shingo's face the day a situation had forced him to shoot someone. It was an expression that said this wasn't the first time Eiji had dealt with mass death in this-or any-form. Hina swallowed nervously, trying to brace herself against a situation she knew she would never be ready to face.

They charged in, Eiji seeking the stranded and the helpless, Hina keeping an eye out for the Yummies or the poison fog. Both of them found their goals at roughly the same time; in the distance, a roiling wall of surprisingly slow-moving death, between it and the humans, a small girl sat crying by a food stand, and near the girl stood two Yummies of unidentifiable origin. Eiji didn't slow down, simply changing direction to get to the girl at full speed; Hina hesitated, then charged the Yummies, pulling the OOO driver from her purse and inserting the Tatoba combo as she pressed it to her stomach. With one fluid motion, she rotated the driver, grabbed the scanner from the belt, and ran it over the medals, all the while hoping that the suit could protect her from whatever weird attack these two apparently had.

To Hina's dismay, only one of the Yummies came after her-abnormal Yummies or not, she knew a normal human wouldn't be able to stand up to them, and it was her responsibility to keep them away from civilians. Even so, it was all she could do to hold off one, let alone get the attention of the Yummy headed for Eiji. She needed a combo, but Ankh had fallen behind at some point. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Satonaka and Date headed their way-no, they were too far out-even if they tried shooting, it wasn't likely they'd hit anyone or anything in the area, let alone their target. Frantically, Hina tried to claw her opponent away-even if she got injured, it was better than the second Yummy killing uninvolved people in front of her-but her desperation did not translate into a combat advantage, and she was forced to watch as the second Yummy readied an attack as it charged.

In a last-ditch effort, Eiji ran at the Yummy, tackling it. Hina cringed the moment before he hit-he'd be hospitalized, at best-and while the Yummy staggered more than she expected it to, it also knocked him aside easily. Rather than pursue the girl, though, it turned toward its would-be assailant. It felt like someone had just plunged a knife in Hina's soul; this was how it was going to end for Eiji. Taken out by some Greeed's lackey, ignorant to the entire situation-like Shingo, except he had no Ankh to save him. This cheery, kindhearted guy done in like-

Eiji got up.

The shock of it gave Hina's opponent the opportunity to send her sprawling, but also left the Yummy open to a shower from Date's Birth Buster as Satonaka finished transforming. With her opponent now occupied, Hina wasted no time in getting back on her feet and turning her attention to the other Yummy-surprisingly, Eiji seemed to be putting up a decent fight, but definitely needed the help. Ambushing it, she managed to knock the Yummy away. Eiji adjusted his position to ready himself to attack.

"Take the girl and get out of here-I'm fine!" Hina yelled, trying to gesture him back, but to no avail. A deeply-buried switch had been flipped in Eiji, and for the first time in his life, he was a combatant, not a survivor. With a primal shout, he tore into the Yummy as best he could; OOO following suit before the enemy could retaliate.

Hina didn't question Eiji's actions anymore-with the situation so precarious, she couldn't afford the time for it.

"Hina!"

She spun automatically at the sound of her name-Ankh had caught up-and caught the two red medals in the same motion, immediately returning her attention to the fight. The combo change was executed too quickly for anyone else to act; the reassuring warmth of Tajador wrapped around her tense mind and body-it was about time to wrap this up. In the back of her mind, she heard the rapid popping of Birth's CLAW activations-Satonaka was about done on her end, too. The Yummy sensed its time was almost up and attempted to flee; unfortunately for it, Tajador could fly as well. Hina wasted no time in finishing it off with a scanning charge, casually circling back to the ground amidst the smoke of its explosion and a rain of cell medals. Below her, the Yummies' deadly haze dissipated into so many harmless wisps.

As soon as the lost child was calmed down and returned to her parents, Hina turned on Eiji.

"What were you _doing_ back there?!" It came out angrier than she intended, but it was better than Eiji blowing off how close he came to getting himself killed. "Why didn't you take the girl and _run_ when I told you to?!"

"That, um..." Eiji stumbled awkwardly around an answer. It was clear he couldn't think of a reason, let alone one that would satisfy Hina.

"You could have _died_, Eiji, those things kill people as easily as they _walk_."

"Ah, but, everything turned out fine, right?"

_That's not the point_.

He changed the topic, "What was all that, anyway? The weird suit and the, uh-" he struggled to remember the proper word, "-the medals?" Hina sighed-it took an hour for Ankh to explain everything to her-who knew how long it would take Eiji to understand the same. Moreover, Ankh's expression distinctly declared that he would have no hand in this. Even so, some things were easier to show than tell.

"Ankh, separate from my brother for a second." Hina moved to put a preemptive arm around his waist; the Greeed gave her an uncomfortable look at the invasion of personal space and involvement in the conversation before sighing softly and complying.

Eiji started reacting when Shingo's arm changed to Ankh and escalated when the Greeed separated from his host's body.

"You! It's _you_!" How intelligent. Hina readjusted her brother's limp body as she spoke.

"Let me reintroduce you-Eiji, this is Ankh-" she gestured casually at the floating arm, "-and this is Shingo, my brother." She gestured at the limp form propped up against her shoulder. "Obviously, Ankh being a foreigner abandoned as a child was a lie. The monsters we were just fighting are called Yummies-when we first bumped into Ankh, one attacked me and my brother, killing him." Eiji gave her a horrified look.

She tried to lessen the morbidity of Shingo's situation, "Almost. _Almost_ killing him. Ankh possessing him has been keeping him alive-eventually he'll be completely healed." the Greeed took the opportunity to rejoin with his body. Hina waited for him to get his footing and brush himself off with an indignant look-and for the information to sink in for Eiji. It took a few moments, but he finally managed to respond with an,  
"Ah-is, is that so..."

Hina explained the rest at her apartment; Eiji handled it surprisingly well, quietly listening for the most part, occasionally asking questions about the Greeed or Kougami. She let him examine the OOO driver, much to Ankh's disapproval, and showed him the candroids-he panicked when she activated the eel, only calming down when she told him it wasn't a snake. When everything seemed to really sink in for him, he began bombarding Hina with questions about her well-being, Ankh's eating habits, if anyone at Kougami's company was giving her problems; it had been a while since Hina had had someone worry so much about her-since Ankh had taken over Shingo's body, in fact-and it felt refreshing.

Even so, Hina firmly reassured Eiji about everything-if he thought she was suffering at all, or that she couldn't handle it, he would _assuredly_ try to become OOO for her sake. She neither needed nor wanted that. Eiji wasn't involved, and Hina planned to keep it that way.


	3. Chapter 3

Ankh could sense medals-that was a fact-but it was a moody sort of radar, prone to acting up, and particularly prone to false negatives. He could detect active core medals, for example, but inactive ones would often get overlooked. Watching Eiji as Hina explained OOO, Ankh couldn't be sure of what his senses were telling him. Ever since he caught up to them in the theme park, he had felt core medals from Eiji-worse, they were unfamiliar ones.

If he was right, though, it brought up several uncomfortable possibilities. The first was that a sixth set of medals existed-unfortunately, this didn't bring the Greeed count up to seven, but eight-Eiji hadn't made today's Yummies. It was also likely that the co-owner of Eiji's medals would want the full set to themself-a second issue, as it meant Eiji would need to be guarded-taking away from Ankh's protection. He made an annoyed face at himself-"if" this was the situation-what a pathetic choice of words. This was almost _definitely_ the situation, as awful and unlikely as it was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hina shoot him a glare-was she still talking to Eiji? He rolled his eyes, _apparently so_.

The third problem was that while Ankh could sense five of these new cores, he didn't detect any cell medals; Eiji was at least partially human, and this nagged at the Greeed more than anything else. What, exactly, was Eiji? Moreover, how-exactly-were Greeeds created? Removing a medal from a set of ten, sure-but what was with their human appearances? Why had Ankh possessed Shingo, on the verge of dying, and not Hina, who was in considerably better condition? Why couldn't he shake the feeling that-as the king of birds, as ten medals-he had had a considerably different disposition, a different personality, even, than when he fought alongside the first OOO?

Ankh tried to focus, to dredge up foggy memories from hundreds of years ago; snippets of what he wanted to know floated through his mind, but he didn't have access to his body and the knowledge it contained. What if, though-_what if_-he, too, had once been human? It would certainly explain the changes he brought about in Shingo's appearance-especially the hair color. If they resembled each other to start with, it would be why he had been attracted to this body-when Ankh was first revived, the idea of living parasitically never crossed his mind, after all.

He shook off his thought process-what he might or might not have been, hundreds of years ago, would not change what he was now, nor would it change the issues at hand. In fact, in this situation, the best thing to do would be nothing; as far as he knew, extracting the medals from Eiji was impossible. With that in mind, he had no reason to tell either of the humans in the next room about his discovery.

Shingo's consciousness shifted uncomfortably at this thought; _shut up_, Ankh thought to himself-his host had been reacting to some of Ankh's thoughts, lately, making him problem number four. Shingo wasn't fully recovered, but didn't need the Greeed to live anymore-or at least, he wouldn't die within minutes of separation. He was usually fine with Ankh's decisions, but when they involved Hina, and Shingo disagreed-well, Ankh would be dealing with the human's discomfort until the dispute between the two was resolved.

Hina had work at the cafe the next day, so Ankh camped at one of the tables as usual, waiting for her shift to end. It was strange-Eiji knew what he really was now, but treated him no differently than before. When business slowed to a crawl, he chatted at Ankh as usual, and even brought him an ice-pop. A thought popped into the Greeed's mind, and he spoke before he could stop himself.

"Hey, Eiji, what's your favorite flavor?" He asked as he contemplated the unwrapped treat.

"Hmm... Sweet, I guess." Ankh resisted the urge to make a face-he meant ice-pop flavor. Instead, he held the frozen treat out to Eiji, who blinked at it in confusion.

"Here." He wagged the ice-pop gently, "You never eat these yourself."

Something flashed across Eiji's face for a split second, "ah, no, it's fine."

Ankh felt his throat catch when he tried to respond at first. "More for me, then," what he meant as a smug comment came out as a pathetic mutter. A revolting thought crossed his mind-what if the cores in Eiji were making him a Greeed?

It fit with Ankh's theory, but he disliked the implications; if he was right, then their conversation meant that Eiji's sense of taste was gone. It was evident in his weird response-a normal person would have taken his offer and maybe even fetched another ice-pop from the freezer. It's not like the things were in short supply-they had at _least_ one box of them at all times, yet Eiji had turned him down; he didn't want to waste something precious to Ankh, because he couldn't appreciate it the way the Greeed did.

How long had he been like this? Ankh tore a bite off his treat; it was too large a piece, and pain shot through his head. A memory surfaced-the first time he had experienced brainfreeze; he could hear Eiji's voice clearly, walking him through it. _If you eat that much at once-breathe through your mouth, Ankh, it'll make it stop hurting_-he tried to think of something else, focusing on the pain and taking another bite when it eased. He failed to ignore the flavor-it was amazing, as it always was-but it wasn't quite the same.

Life was looking up for Hina. She now had someone _normal _privy to her secret, _and_ she no longer had to lie to Eiji. That had been the hardest; it wasn't that he was easy to trick, but that he willingly went along with any fib. Hina had watched on their first paycheck as Eiji handed out money to people that "needed" it, some clearly teens that just wanted pocket change. That he smiled about it when she brought it up killed her-she and Ankh were the same, giving Eiji a blatant fabrication for their own convenience.

That was in the past now, and took a heavy load off Hina. The whole world seemed brighter, the weather was the best it had been in weeks, and Hina was looking forward to her midday appointment with Satonaka. They were going to a cake shop, which Date had informed her was supplied unofficially by Kougami himself. Hina wondered how a lone man could make all the cakes for a popular store, but Date claimed his taste buds couldn't be fooled. To be fair, Hina had never had a conversation with Kougami that didn't involve speaking across an intricately-decorated cake.

It was a bit worrying that Ankh would be vulnerable to his other self during the half hour the girls were meeting, but Gotou and Date were keeping an eye out for him. Eiji had promised the same, actually, when he overheard them discussing Ankh's safety; it was true that he had held his own against a Yummy, but Hina wasn't going to rely on the odds of him besting either Ankh in a fight. It was much more likely that nothing at all would happen, so Hina resolved to enjoy her cake.

The shop was just how Hina had imagined it-a quiet place, painted a pale pink with accents to match the food's decorations. Elaborately-iced pastries of all sorts were laid out in glass cases around the store, with cushy-looking seating not unlike a pastel version of a coffee shop. Stuffed animals were placed about the store, and Hina finally understood why, on this one occasion, Satonaka had insisted on choosing both their outfits. While Hina had pressured her friend into giving her a plainer dress, they still looked like a pair of expensive dolls-a picture of them eating on one of the cushions could have been used as an advertisement for the place.

The OOO girl felt a bit embarrassed as she ate; now that she was surrounded by pastels and lace, she couldn't decide if her outfit-which previously felt too frilly-had _enough_ ribbons or trim on it or not. Instead, she focused as best she could on her conversation with Satonaka. It was their usual type of chat-interesting stories from working at Cous Coussier, Kougami's antics, things they bought or wanted to buy recently but didn't-with Satonaka, as always, watching the time. That was just how she worked, and despite Gotou's criticisms, Hina respected her ability to separate work from her personal life so impressively. The Birth user took her last bite as she checked the clock a final time. Her break was over; she grabbed her purse and got up to leave, popping a piece of gum in her mouth as she did so. She stopped, facing away from Hina, as if remembering something,

"Ah... right." She had already switched to her bored-sounding work voice, "Birth won't be able to lend you assistance anymore-nothing personal."

With that, Satonaka left without so much as a glance back at Hina.

The expression on Hina's face when she returned to Cous Coussier made Eiji double-check Ankh's table; the Greeed was still sitting there, tamely playing with Shingo's phone and eating the ice-pop he had been given earlier. What, then, had happened that was _that_ bad? Gotou, who had been helping out as he kept an eye on Ankh, intercepted Hina before Eiji got the chance. Eiji finished putting the dirty dishes from a booth onto his tray, wiped the table of crumbs, and took the dishes to the kitchen to clean. He wanted to help if he could, but Gotou had known Hina's problems much longer; he would undoubtedly be more comforting with whatever happened.

Eiji set the edge of the tray on the counter and started unloading its contents. Debilitating pain shot through his body as he relocated a mug; Eiji clenched it reactively, gasping for air and struggling to push the tray further on the counter so he wouldn't drop it. His legs gave out on him slowly, and he sank to the floor. It took all his effort not to cry out from the acuteness of the attack; instead he focused on actually breathing, instead of his current ragged noise-making. He'd been feeling a little off lately, and had gotten checked by a doctor, but nothing was wrong with him-even brain scans had come up clean. These sudden waves of pain were new, though. Luckily, he hadn't had an attack in front of anyone else, but it was really a matter of time, and Eiji knew it.

_Just give up_, something whispered to him, _just die, it's so much easier than hurting like this_. Eiji shoved the thought away; it wasn't the first time he had had to confront these emotions, nor would it be the last, but it _had_ been a while since they last surfaced. The thought returned, more resilient than usual. _Who can you help? No one. If you turned to dust right here no one would be worse off_.

_I'll help anyone my hand can reach, _Eiji retaliated. It was a weak reason, but it was the only one he had.

_You can't even help the people that care about you, what _few _there are._

The pain got worse as the thoughts went on; _shut up, just shut up already_. Eiji gripped the mug in his hand harder as he tried to endure the clusters of stabbing in his chest and gut. He didn't realize how much force he was exerting until he heard the mug shatter and felt its shards slice open his hand. It distracted him, grounded him, drew his attention more than his self-detrimental thoughts, which faded away and took the pain with them.

He staggered back to his feet, shaking off the residue of the attack and calming his breathing-he could make out footsteps, and he didn't want their owner to see him as a wreck on the floor. Oh, great, he was bleeding everywhere; Eiji pulled the larger ceramic shards from his palm before relocating to the sink and running water over the wound. It was oddly comforting-pain was about the only sense that hadn't abandoned him, and unlike his attacks, he knew where this pain came from-the cuts also hurt significantly less.

"Eiji, are you alright? It sounded like something broke just now" Chiyoko-that's who he had heard earlier. Eiji gave her his most reassuring smile; the one he gave kids when they heard explosions nearby, when he told them everything would be okay. If they believed it, surely she would as well.

"Yeah, a mug broke-I wasn't expecting it and cut my hand. I'm fine." She nodded, still concerned.

"Gotou or Hina will clean it up, so just worry about treating your hand properly." With that, she left, presumably to fetch one of them to help Eiji.

Ankh watched Chiyoko leave the kitchen and head straight to where Gotou and Hina were talking. The latter's meeting with the Birth user had left her stunned, but neither of them had felt the need to fill Ankh in on the details. In other words, it had something to do with people, particularly ones that Ankh didn't care about. Granted, that was most everyone he knew, much to Hina's chagrin. He just hoped whatever happened wouldn't affect Hina in battle-she seemed calmer after talking with Gotou, at least, so he wasn't too concerned.

Eiji emerged from the kitchen shortly after, one hand wrapped in bandages. Ankh watched him warily; he had sensed the new cores flaring up. He just appeared tired, though, and even managed a smile when the Greeed accidentally met his gaze. Ankh _really_ didn't want to tell Hina about these medals, or her friend's possible Greeedification, but he had to face a very real chance that Eiji might become a danger to those around him. If that happened, and he caught OOO off-guard... Ankh frowned-it was a lose-lose situation, no matter what he did.

Something nagged at Ankh, saying he'd regret this decision-Shingo again. Ugh. The longer he spent in this body, the more he understood how it felt to be a human, and this _obnoxious, constant _bombardment of inconvenient _opinions_ about what he "should" do must be what having a _conscience_ was like. He desperately wanted-no, _needed_-his own, fully-revived body back. It wasn't just for his own convenience-if Ankh took much longer, Shingo wouldn't need him, he'd consequently lose Hina's protection, and most definitely be consumed by his impostor.


	4. Chapter 4

Eiji had learned many things in his travels, not the least of which was how strangely life could treat a person. He had received a letter the other day from a high-school friend of his—they were opening a theme park soon, and wanted to invite him and anyone he felt like bringing to enjoy it privately. He only knew a couple people, and as Chiyoko said she was busy, he extended the offer to Hina and anyone she could think of. They rendezvoused at the Cous Coussier, and Eiji was mildly surprised that he recognized everyone, even if only as frequent customers at the cafe—Date, Gotou, Satonaka—all the people that knew about Greeed.

They took the train to the park—Gotou suggested ridevendors initially, but Ankh and Eiji vetoed the idea. The Greeed didn't want to waste _his_ cell medals when he was already going to be wasting his time—Hina slapped him on the arm when he said as much. Eiji was worried about having an attack while driving; he claimed the park was too far out to take motorcycles instead, which everyone seemed to accept. It helped that it was true—the park was outside the city, and while it was close to a train station, it was otherwise a fair distance from their starting point.

The ride was relaxing, with plenty of chatter. Eiji took the opportunity to get to know Date and Satonaka better—in other words, the cafe frequenters—he had worked with Gotou. Date shamelessly informed him that the three of them were more or less paid to hang around Hina in case something happened. Gotou rolled his eyes at his coworker's attitude—he was one of the quieter ones on this trip, along with Ankh. Oddly, Satonaka had taken the day off for this, despite Hina being present. It might have been Eiji's imagination or deteriorating vision, but he could have sworn this tidbit snagged Gotou's attention.

Eiji couldn't remember the host until they met him at the park. His name was Yuichi Kitamura, and he had been a shut-in in the class next to Eiji's in high school. Yuichi left after a few rides, saying he had a few things to take care of, and that he'd return. It didn't stop the others from running the full course, though, from the ferris wheel to the roller coasters. When they got to the haunted house, Hina opted out—not because she was scared, but because she didn't want to risk breaking it if a surprise triggered her battle instincts. She practically forced everyone else to go, however, and said she'd meet them at the exit.

The attraction was pretty standard—dark and creepy, animatronics designed to suggest ghost action, eerie noises—but most of the visitors remained unphased. Strangely, Ankh was the jumpiest one on the ride, which they mocked him for when they exited to meet with Hina. Yuichi rejoined them, and they waited for several minutes before they started to worry. Had a Yummy attacked? A Greeed? No, something told Eiji that wasn't the case—Ankh wasn't reacting, either. Figuring she was lost, they decided to search for her; Satonaka, Gotou, and Eiji would be in one party, while Date, Yuichi, and Ankh would be in the other.

Splitting up seemed a bit like overkill, but Gotou insisted it was for the best—if each group went around a different side of the building, they couldn't miss Hina, after all. As they parted ways, Eiji got a nagging feeling that something was coming, and he couldn't help scanning the skies. An abnormally large bird seemed to be heading their way—just to be safe, he grabbed the other man's attention.

"Hey, Gotou... are there bird Yummies?"

Gotou's expression went from horrified revelation to alarm as he turned to what Eiji was looking at.

"Satonaka!" He yelled. She turned and glanced at him, then the Yummy, and casually chewed her gum a few times.

"It's my day off."

Gotou swore loudly at her.

"Then at least give me the driver!" Satonaka sighed, pulled it from her purse, and lazily tossed it at her coworker.

"Good luck" she added dryly before walking off. Eiji was dumbfounded as Gotou began strapping the belt on.

"Is... Is she always like-"

"_Yes_." Gotou answered in a voice laced with a dozen stories. He dropped his backpack on the ground, inserted a cell medal in Birth's driver, and began the transformation. "There are candroids in the backpack—send one to Hina and use the rest to distract the Yummy if you can." He inserted several medals in rapid succession, a large cannon forming on his chest. "One last thing—run if it gets dangerous. You aren't involved in this, and none of us want to see you hurt." With that, Gotou launched a rather impressive energy beam at the Yummy. It missed, but it drew the creature's attention; Eiji took the opportunity to withdraw to a safer distance—Gotou seemed to have this under control.

—-

Hina came to in a cement tube with no idea where she was or how she got there. She briefly remembered getting caught in a net, but had been knocked out soon after—probably with drugs, if this lingering drowsiness meant anything. Looking around, she noted that both sides of the tube were blocked; she had to have been put here somehow, however, and the tiny window shining light on her face wasn't big enough to fit a dog through, let alone a human.

She stood as best she could manage—the space was too small, so she had to hunch over—shuffled to one end of the tube, and pushed tentatively against it. It moved a miniscule amount and returned back to its original position, but it was enough for Hina. She assaulted it with her full strength, and was rewarded with the sound of several heavy objects falling over and being pushed across the ground as the door opened. Able to properly examine her surroundings, she found that—

—she still had no idea where she was.

It seemed to be a battlefield for toy gun fights, like lasertag or paintball—the cement tube she had just come from was a bunker of sorts, and more projectile cover made of similar materials surrounded her. Odds were she was still in the theme park—that was a start, at least. Hina started for what seemed to be the entrance of the arena; moving an unconscious person took time, which meant that the others had to have noticed her disappearance by now.

The sound of mechanical wings caught her attention—a hawk candroid was headed her way. Hina braced herself—either Gotou had sent it out to look for her, or, "Is it a Yummy?" she asked as soon as the bird was close enough. It nodded, and she let out a sigh through her teeth. What _awful_ timing. "Lead the way" she commanded, and ran after the candroid, reaching for her purse—and OOO—out of habit. Her stomach dropped when her hand hit air—her purse was gone; it could be where she was captured, or worse, with her kidnapper. Either way, she didn't have OOO, which meant she could no longer guard it from the opposing Greeed. Still, she chased the candroid—it would at least lead her to her friends.

—-

Some things in life need more than a manual to use, and Gotou quickly discovered that Birth was one of those things. Three requirements needed to be met in order to use Birth—the first was knowledge of its functions, a part that Date had failed miserably. His attitude of, "I'll just figure it out on the fly" resulted in a fail on the written part of the aptitude test as well as an unbelievably catastrophic practical; CLAWs were _not _interchangeable for accomplishing goals. During the test's mock retrieval of cell medals, an ill-timed breast cannon _incinerating _the dummy medals rather than the proper use of _anything else_, really, had resulted in Date's disqualification from becoming a potential Birth user. His disposition made him flexible relative to the unexpected, though, so he was used to test the prototype Birth while his coworkers moved forward in the qualification testing.

The second requirement was physical capability. Gotou possessed this, but Satonaka had beaten him in combat every time, so she had advanced to the third requirement—Birth-specific training. Gotou was discovering the hard way that getting a medal into a slot while being attacked was considerably harder than it initially seemed; worse, the suit itself was draining to move around in, seeming to fight him at every turn. It was all he could do to draw the Yummy's attention, and he couldn't shake the feeling that his opponent was _toying_ with him.

Pretty much everything was contributing to Gotou's frustration at this point; Satonaka's abandonment, his own incompetence, and even Eiji—damn it all, the candroids were programmed to assist combatants and civilians against Yummies—but he kept trying to direct them, _individually_, to help. Spread out like that, attacking alone, they had no effect on the Yummy, who currently had the temporary Birth user pinned on the ground. Trying to wrestle his opponent off him, Gotou heard voices approaching—the other group had circled the building. He succeeded at shoving the Yummy away and made a disgusted face—the closest thing to a combatant in the group was Ankh, unless they had found Hina. A quick glance told him that they hadn't, though Satonaka was present. Why the _hell_ did she bring everyone back, when she knew it was dangerous?

"Eiji! Eiji, are you okay?" Yuichi ran to his friend's side. Really? Even the biggest moron could tell he wasn't involved in the fight. Gotou rolled his eyes and tried to sit up; his transformation ended abruptly, no longer supplementing his strength, and dropped him back on the ground. Was he really that exhausted? Apparently so. Struggling to roll over, he kept track of the Yummy, so he saw the moment it re-examined the party with its shifty little Yummy eyes and swooped in to attack. It wrapped Satonaka in a weird substance easily before carrying her off. Gotou gave up on moving and let himself collapse, eyes closed; he had _just_ thought of bribing Satonaka to fight today, too.

"Hey, Gotou, are you hurt?" Date's sympathetic voice.

"Just tired."

He sighed and opened his eyes—he couldn't lay on the ground all day. Date offered him a hand up.

"Yeah, it does that to ya'. The prototype is worse, if you can believe that."

Gotou grunted in response, began unfastening the driver from his waist, and held it out to Date. The latter frowned.

"Didn't you want that?"

"Yes, but—" Gotou forced himself to say it, "—I can't use it as I am right now." Date nodded understandingly and took the driver.

—-

Yuichi was the parent of a Yummy—Ankh had sensed that since they reunited after the haunted house. What his desire was was another matter; had Ankh been able to make Yummies, he'd know what it was at a glance. Normally, the Greeed could care less about the parent's desire, but the "food" the Yummy was carrying back to the "nest" was apparently them. If he was kidnapped next, he'd be at the mercy of his impostor, and Ankh knew well that Greeed had no concept of mercy. Uncovering the Yummy's motive and figuring out whether he was in danger, then, became an utmost priority.

As Eiji had sent a candroid to find Hina, Gotou had deemed it best for everyone to wait in the area; they could get word back from the robot faster if it didn't have to search for them, too. Yuichi had appeared almost downtrodden when the candroid was mentioned; a fact Shingo's groggy consciousness found suspicious. Ankh ignored him, as usual, and went with Yuichi willingly when the latter wanted to talk privately; his desire was probably something he wanted kept a secret—extracting it would be easier without the others around.

As soon as no one could see or hear them, the park owner started speaking.

"What do you know about Eiji?"

Eiji? Ankh was blindsided by the question—what did anything have to do with _Eiji_?

"What are you _talking_ about." The Greed began advancing toward the human—the conversation had already careened into a weird topic, and Ankh intended to intimidate it back to a useful one.

"If you think I'll let you use Eiji as you please-" Yuichi continued. He had begun stepping away—he felt instinctively cornered by the Greeed. Good—that's how it should be.

Yuichi smiled and Shingo projected a warning at the same time—a trap. _Literally_ a trap, Ankh discovered too late, as a net appeared from under him; he had been played by this crazed human, and for what? Eiji? He had nothing to do with the current situation. Well—Ankh flinched—that statement wasn't exactly true anymore, but it was close enough. Shoving irrelevant thoughts away, he struggled against the mesh net as Yuichi walked off—even at this distance, the human's smugness was insufferable. Ankh would have his revenge for this—after all, Greeeds had no concept of mercy.

—-

It had been quite the jog, but at last Hina could make out her friends, seemingly waiting for her. The closest was Gotou, working on his phone at a picnic table; he didn't notice the OOO user until she called out to him. She caught her breath while he filled her in on everything that had happened and flagged down Date to let the others know she was back. Hina told him what little she could—she hadn't seen her attacker, and she currently didn't have the OOO driver. Gotou frowned at that, but quickly began arranging a search plan. With everyone gathered to talk, Hina finally noticed that someone was missing.

"Guys, where's Ankh?" A quick head-swivel verified his disappearance, but the sound of flapping wings interrupted any search parties; the Yummy was back. Date wasted no time in transforming, and Gotou pulled a Birth buster from his bag. Hina briefly wondered what he _didn't_ have in there before taking off; a non-combatant was useless—at the least, she needed to find the OOO driver. Eiji grabbed Yuichi and ran after her; if her purse was where she was taken, they should find it faster with more people.

It took her a moment to find the spot to start at—the back of the building lacked a decent landmark. Yuichi found the purse, miraculously with the driver still inside. Ankh had taken to holding all the medals after his imposer was discovered, so she still couldn't transform, but Hina returned to the fight nonetheless. She was stunned to find no one engaged in combat—and Gotou missing. An annoyed Date was watching the Yummy's silhouette as it returned to its nest with their friend. Hina gritted her teeth—if Ankh was here, she could have used Tajador to pursue it. She turned, examining the surroundings again, as if to verify that the Greeed was still gone. As she did, she spotted him coming over a nearby slope, irate and with a leaf stuck in his hair. She ran to him and called his name, but he walked past her brusquely; Ankh was on the warpath, and his eyes indicated his victim was—Yuichi?

Hina blinked in surprise as she watched the Greeed advance toward his target. The latter became rapidly distressed when he spotted the monster, which Ankh exasperated by grabbing the human's chin with his clawed arm.

"What desire of yours in the Yummy operating on?" he hissed.

"What are you _talking_ about? What do I have to do with that thing?" Yuichi protested; Hina didn't intervene—she trusted Ankh's senses.

"Fine, let's talk about things you _do_ know, then, like trying to kidnap me and Hina." It was a shocking revelation, sure, but who else could have done it? Yuichi couldn't just own up to it, though, and stammered more protests while Ankh continued. "What I want to know is what any of this has to do with Eiji." He murmured. Pressuring Yuichi like this felt a bit cruel, but her brother's life was at stake, and Ankh could get results.

"I-I just wanted to help him... Like he helped me in high school-" Ankh sneered, at least until another voice cut Yuichi off.

"It was my idea." The bold proclamation came from Eiji, of all people. "I suggested we give the trip an adventure feel, but we went too far—I'm sorry!"

The last time Hina heard someone fib that badly was when she had claimed Ankh was an abandoned foreign child. Still, how many times had Eiji "fallen" for a shoddy story to help someone else? Hina, if not the world, owed him at least this. She glanced at Ankh; he had somehow been completely suckered. Hina tried to imitate his expression and say something believable; finally, she managed a weak, "Oh, I see." Satisfied, Eiji turned to his friend.

"Yuichi, does anything here remind you of our past?"

"What kind of question is _that_?" Ankh butted in.

"Well, the whole park can't be the nest. I figure the parent has some influence on the Yummy, right?" The Greeed just stared at him, so Eiji continued, "you asked about his desire just now, so you think so too." He turned back to his friend, "Is there somewhere you really liked?"

Slowly, Yuichi nodded, "the botanical gardens..." Eiji beamed at him.

"Lead the way."

—-

"So it got you, too."

Gotou couldn't have asked for a lousier day. A Yummy attack on Satonaka's _precious_ day off, followed by him not only _botching_ his opportunity to claim Birth from her and getting captured by the Yummy, but being stuck with her until Hina and Date could _hopefully_ rescue them. That this bird Yummy had deposited them in a _literal_ nest somehow made the situation worse—and Satonaka had the _nerve_ to chat casually with him after everything. Gotou couldn't hold it back anymore.

"It's _your_ fault we're like this, remember?" He snapped. Satonaka didn't respond immediately. When she did, her voice was tinged with something Gotou had never heard in it before.

"Do you have Birth on you?"

"Why, so you can refuse to use it again?" He quipped, then started trying to kick the nest. It was as therapeutic as it was futile—the nest could hold two adults; a few kicks wouldn't break it.

Still, Gotou persisted—with any luck, he could make the nest's supports snap. Satonaka had other ideas, and Gotou's efforts were irritating her.

"Would you cut that out?" Gotou paused to give her a look of disgust.

"_Some of us_ are _working_ today," he spelled out for her in his most patronizing tone. She raised her eyebrows at his snark before he resumed kicking.

"Well then, I'll be holding you responsible for any public indecency charges I incur." Gotou stopped kicking again.

"_What?_" He couldn't manage an angry tone anymore; the topic change was too sudden. Satonaka glared at the glass roof—the Yummy—as she answered.

"My skirt caught on one of these sticks. Today's fight is off the clock."

Gotou felt his heart skip a beat—the tone he couldn't identify before was anger—emotion, in a work-related matter. A rip in her dress gave her a vendetta strong enough to make her fight on her off day; if she wasn't so clever, Gotou would have personally shredded her wardrobe and blamed the Greeed for it. He leaned back and allowed himself to revel in the moment. The shift in his position allowed him to notice a candroid under his hip—Pteranodon—one that could fly. Straining against his bonds, he managed to reach and activate it; they could contact the others. Gotou couldn't suppress a grin—this was actually turning into a good day.

—-

They were sprinting distance from the greenhouse when they heard the mechanical screeching of a candroid; this was the Yummy's nest. Hina led the charge, with a confused Yuichi bringing up the rear.

"Stay back, it's dangerous!" She heard his friend shout behind her. She turned her head enough to add to the commands.

"You too, Eiji!" Seriously, why was he charging the nest with them? His footsteps slowed as he dropped back, but he didn't avert his course. Their opponent was just the one Yummy, so he probably wouldn't be in danger, but it still made the OOO user uncomfortable. Their enemy seemed to be out, as they weren't attacked upon entry. Finding Gotou and Satonaka wasn't an issue, either, as a conspicuous nest was suspended from the ceiling by the black material the Yummy used. The captives were freed a few candroids later; Gotou was picking the last of his bindings off when they heard the telltale sound of giant wings. Hina pressed her driver to her waist, but Date was stopped by Satonaka.

"She _wants_ to fight this time." Gotou chimed in, putting a friendly hand on Date's shoulder. The Prototype Birth tester relinquished the driver with a casual shrug. Hina briefly wondered what happened, then caught sight of Satonaka's skirt just before the other girl executed her transformation.

Gotou had assumed incorrectly that Satonaka's wrath stemmed from vanity. Hina, on the other hand, knew that the Birth user designed and made her entire wardrobe. The outfit she was wearing today was new, painstakingly crafted over the last month, and in the back of her elaborately-sewn skirt was a rip spanning half its length—the location in the design meant the whole thing was ruined, too. Hina shuddered as she caught Ankh's medal selection, Sauba; Satonaka was about to unleash destruction for the history books.

The two girls ganged up on the Yummy, chasing and stopping it when it fled outside. Satonaka readied a finisher—she was completely focused on the enemy, so Kazari's assault caught her unaware. How long had he been here? Worse, how many other Greeeds were nearby?

"What's this?" Kazari mocked as Birth struggled to pick herself up, "I thought it was your day off today?" Hina frowned—it seemed odd for him to know that—or care, for that matter. Stranger still, Satonaka justified herself to him, voice filled with venom.

"It ruined my _skirt_." Kazari shrugged.

"It doesn't really matter with today's agenda, anyway."

Before Hina could contemplate what he meant, the Greeed rushed OOO with no warning; she was at a disadvantage—trying to fight claws with whips was tricky. Kazari didn't leave her the chance to change medals, keeping the distance between them small. Satonaka couldn't lend support, either—with OOO no longer cornering the Yummy, Birth was having problems dealing with it. Kazari broke Hina's transformation, advancing to deal the finishing blow when Gotou's Birth buster interrupted him. Annoyed, the Greeed charged his assailant. Hina caught the look in Gotou's eyes as he brought the gun up to shoot instead of run; he didn't stand a chance and he knew it, but wanted to go down like his men.

Kazari's attack never landed, as a carnal screech resounded on the battlefield, its owner knocking the Greeed away in mid-air. Rampaging, the creature tore into Kazari, scattering cell medals wildly; as they grappled, Hina caught sight of this new combatant's face—Eiji. That name didn't suit this animal of unparalleled wrath, one that Kazari was now wary of; he managed to put some distance between himself and Eiji, and showed no signs of starting round two with the human.

"Well, it's not like you guys were the target, anyway" Kazari tossed out, backing away from his opponent. The group realized what he meant too late; the Yummy had gotten the better of Satonaka and slipped away to grab Ankh. "And good luck with _that_," Kazari added with a gesture to his opponent before leaving.

Hina struggled to stand, evaluating Eiji as she did so; she couldn't tell if he was going to calm down or attack. She reactivated her transformation—at the very least, she could taze him with Sauba's eel whips. The noise snagged his attention, and he examined OOO with brilliantly violet eyes. Hina moved his status from "battle-drunk" to "feral animal" in her mind—she wouldn't go all-out, but she no longer considered trying to talk him out of it possible. He rushed her and Hina readied her attack. An invisible force yanked Eiji back violently, stopping him mid-charge; the purple faded from his eyes, and his expression switched from crazed bloodlust to shock. An involuntary groan escaped him as he collapsed to the ground; writhing in pain, he didn't respond when they called his name, transitioning into unconsciousness soon after.

—-

They brought Eiji to the park's rest area—he hadn't woken since he collapsed, and no one knew what was wrong with him—and released a swarm of candroids to locate Ankh. Being separated from the Greeed was worrying, but without a clue where he had been taken, splitting up to search haphazardly could be worse. Waiting anxiously outside the building with Gotou, Hina struck up a conversation.

"About what happened with Eiji earlier... Do you think it has to do with the weird Yummies from before?" Gotou mulled his answer over.

"It's classified information, but," he paused, bit his lip, and continued, "Kougami found a complete set of ten medals a few years ago. I only learned about their existence recently, due to Dr. Maki stealing them." He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, "at the least, I'd say it's safe to assume a seventh Greeed has come into play." He examined Hina's expression before continuing, "whether they have something to do with Eiji's rampage or not is harder to answer. If the new Greeed was possessing him, perhaps, but he's been normal until now—unlike your brother, who's always controlled by Ankh."

"True..." Hina muttered. Glancing up, she spotted a candroid returning in the distance—sunlight didn't reflect off normal birds.

The door to the rest lodge opened behind them.

"Ah, you're out here" Gotou and Hina turned to the speaker.

"Eiji?"

"What are you doing up?"

"You should be resting." Eiji held his hands up to ward off their protests.

"I'm fine, I promise." He reassured them with his best smile.

"You_ collapsed_ earlier," Hina pressured.

"Eh? Ah, must have been heatstroke, I don't really remember."

_Heatstroke doesn't make you bludgeon a monster into retreating_. Hina bit her tongue; now wasn't the best time to tell him. Instead, she and Gotou alerted the others to the return of the candroid—it was time to save Ankh.

—-

It was an impressive chain of events that landed Ankh in his current predicament, to be sure. He didn't care to marvel at how many points he could have avoided this; laying on the ground, completely at the mercy of his impostor, Kazari, and Maki, he cursed his luck. He would have abandoned Shingo, but he was pinned against the human by the Yummy's bindings. His vantage point at least allowed him to see the candroid Hina's group had sent out, but would they arrive in time?

"How's it feel, knowing you'll be disappearing soon?"

_Sneer all you like, Kazari, it's better for me_. Ankh decided to stall—if he let the conversation go their way, he'd be destroyed in minutes. He turned his attention to the easiest target—Maki.

"I didn't expect to sense those medals from you."

"That's irrelevant," Maki addressed his doll, as usual, "you won't be around much longer." So much for stalling. Ankh's impostor chuckled, stood, and began calling for Ankh to return to his body. The Greeed's senses skewed all at once, a disorienting wave that left him unable to even function mentally. A sickening tug accompanied the second wave—he felt like he was going to hurl and he couldn't breathe—he was losing control of his cores. A third wave, and he couldn't think enough to think that he couldn't think.

_Ankh_. A voice gripped his rapidly shredding consciousness, pulling him back as a fourth wave struck. This voice came from a safe place, immune to core medals and Greeed—it tried to shield him as the attack turned into a bombardment. It couldn't save him, but it could help, giving Ankh everything it had; the sweet taste of ice-pops flooded his mouth, the scent of Hina's perfume—various senses lit up with their strongest memories, one after the other. The recalled input flooded Ankh's mind, dampening the effect of his impostor's assault. He would be absorbed, yes, but he had something to cling to, something to ground himself with now. When he went down, it would be as Ankh, and not the confused wreck the mental attacks would reduce him to.

Everything vanished suddenly, depositing Ankh back in the woods—the ice-pops were gone, Hina's perfume replaced with the smell of rotting leaves and dirt, but the mental onslaught had vanished as well. He gasped for air and tried to orient himself; he could feel his borrowed body trembling, the foreign emotion confusing. Dazed and vulnerable, he didn't question when Shingo gently directed his attention; Hina had arrived to save them. The other Ankh glared at the new arrivals—Maki was much grimmer, wary of Eiji. Ankh couldn't guess why he had come, or why Hina had let him, but it didn't matter as much as the fact he was present now.

Ankh grit his teeth and hooked his talons into his bindings—this was his only chance to escape, if things went sour—freeing himself as quickly as he could manage. He noticed Maki turn to leave—why wasn't he trying to take Eiji's medals? It was better for OOO, though—the last fight had been a wreck—they didn't need another opponent in the fray. The other Ankh followed the doctor as his Yummy went after Birth—he had no interest outside of absorbing his other self, apparently.

The fight wasn't any better than before, but Ankh made sure to keep a better eye on the Yummy, lest it fly away with him again. He gave OOO Tatoba instead of the Sauba he used earlier—Kazari no longer had the advantage of claws, but Hina was tired, and it showed. Satonaka was even worse off, the suit's fatigue exasperating her situation against her airborne opponent—Gotou's and Date's covering fire with their Birth busters held off the worst scenario, but it couldn't last much longer.

They needed something to turn the tide in their favor; Ankh's attention snapped to Eiji. The medals inside him were starting to flare up, but with most of the people present fighting, Ankh was the only one to notice. If the human went berserk again, he would certainly decimate their enemies, but the Greeed didn't know if he could differentiate between those and his friends. Eiji's face contorted with barely contained pain, and a silver glint in his skin caught Ankh's attention—cell medals. His body was fluctuating between human and Greeed, which meant that right now... Ankh crossed the short distance to Eiji, who was oblivious to the world and what the Greeed was about to do to him; putting his left hand on Eiji's shoulder, he plunged his right into the human's back. Sure enough, it slid in as though through a fellow Greeed. Ankh seized three of Eiji's cores—

—and tried not to scream. An unexpectedly cruel agony shot up from his hand—was this what Eiji had to endure every time his medals activated? Ankh grit his teeth and shoved Eiji away with his left arm; he didn't dare risk moving his right, for fear he would release the cores—they hurt too much. Separated from their host, the pain dulled to a much more manageable level.

"Hina!" He bellowed, throwing the new combo the moment she was open. Ankh would be explaining the medals later, sure, but right now he just hoped they wouldn't burn OOO and make Hina drop them.

Hina had all of a half-second to decide what to say about the medals Ankh had just thrown her; a dozen questions came to mind, but she settled on the shortest.

"_Purple?!_" She shrieked, already switching out Tatoba as she dodged Kazari's onslaught of slashes and whirlwinds. "Where did you get _purple_?!"

"Just fight!" Ankh hollered back. Hina twisted the OOO driver and ran the scanner over it; the belt called out the names of dinosaurs. Well, _that_ was certainly a change of pace from the other medals' themes. Raw, unbridled energy flooded Hina as the combo embraced her. She noted that Kazari's movements had become cautious—he was scared, as he should be—she would _destroy_ him. She could destroy _anything she wanted_, in fact; it was a completely euphoric feeling, and it promised even better pleasure if she were to use this power. She tackled Kazari and sent him flying—had he really been giving her problems before? He stood, clearly looking for an escape route; that wouldn't do at all—if he left, Hina couldn't destroy him.

The world seemed to have other plans, as the bird Yummy crashed to the ground between them. Kazari seized his opportunity to leap off into the brush. Hina turned to the monster that had so rudely interrupted her; she'd make sure it paid for what it had done. It took Birth and OOO little time to dispatch their remaining enemy, but they didn't have time to enjoy their victory; Hina's transformation broke unexpectedly, the purple medals ejecting themselves and whizzing behind her. She turned in time to watch them disappear into an unconscious Eiji's chest; surprisingly, Hina noted that Ankh was by his side. Eiji cringed a moment later—he was starting to wake up.

—-

The sky was grey, the ground was grey, the trees were grey, and all of it in low, noise-flooded resolution; for a moment, Eiji couldn't tell if he was face-up or sideways or possibly even face-down. He squinted—pain from the sunlight—that grey looked a bit bluer than the others. He was facing the sky, he decided; his condition had been terrifying a few days ago, but now it didn't seem to matter anymore. He had seen people worse-off than he, and aside from the acute attacks, he lived a comfortable life, didn't he? His senses may have dulled, but he still had them, at least.

A face blocked part of his view—who? Oh, it was Ankh. What was he so worried about? Oh, right, Eiji had collapsed. He managed a smile for the Greeed; he could claim heatstroke again, maybe. If he told them the truth, they'd never believe that he was fine; they wouldn't understand, and it was best not to worry them. Eiji sat up, a dull pain throbbing in his chest—he could ignore something of that level.

"Eiji..." Hina sounded so far away—then again, the whole world was like that. Satonaka and the others approached, putting away their weapons. Ankh spoke before anyone could tell Eiji anything _stupid_.

"If you were that badly off, why the _hell_ did you follow these guys? The only thing you managed to do was _faint_ again."

"Ah, sorry about that" Eiji smiled again. Ankh made an irritated noise and left in the direction of the rest house.

"...I didn't peg him for the worrying type." Gotou mused in the following quiet. Date chuckled and Hina managed a smile.

"I'll go talk to him." She added as she helped Eiji off the ground. the latter brushed himself off as she pursued the Greeed ahead of the others.

—-

With only a few minutes between her arrival and the rest of the group's, Hina didn't have time to squeeze an answer out of Ankh, despite her best efforts. The silent consensus on the purple medals was to not tell Eiji—at least, not until they knew what was going on. Hina didn't like it in the slightest, evident in her pointed stares at Kougami's employees—she had been unofficially outvoted, however, and it had been a long day. Not willing to let the topic slide, she cornered the one person that couldn't evade her—the one she lived with. However, the topic turned into a screaming match soon after walking through their apartment door.

"What do you _mean_ you don't know what's wrong with him?!" Hina practically threw her purse onto a coathook. Ankh had been refusing to answer questions with anything except snark.

"What _moron_ would put core medals in a human?!" he retaliated.

"You're the expert, aren't you?"  
"Oh? Then why don't you tell me—in precise detail—how you were born." the Greeed first sneered, then regretted his words when Hina's eyes widened; Ankh wasn't just fighting her, but a rampant, sourceless theory of his that _maybe_, just _maybe_ Greeeds were born from human hosts. A rampant theory that he had just managed to let slip. It shocked the human into a drastically lower volume, at least.

"How I… Eiji's becoming a Greeed?" she uttered softly. Ankh couldn't tell if she was going to cry or rage. The Greeed decided he had done enough damage for the day—he headed for Shingo's room, shut and locked the door.

A few moments later, Hina seemed to have recovered from the shock; she knocked on his door, asking him to come out, to explain. She had already set the anger aside—this was something they should talk about, it was important. Ankh tried to ignore her—what did he know about the technicalities, anyway? Half his answers were guesses and theories—and right or not, he didn't want to talk about them. Eventually, Hina asked a question he couldn't ignore.

"Ankh… Is there anything we can do to help Eiji?"

"No," Shingo's voice sounded hollow as he replied, "Nothing."


	5. Chapter 5

After botching his chance at using Birth, Gotou began practicing with the prototype Birth. He worked hard, running obstacle courses and sparring with Date during Satonaka's off hours, when the second suit was available. Despite using the outdated model, Gotou managed to hold his own against Date within a couple days. Unsurprisingly, the whole project was supported by Kougami, though Satonaka remained Birth's primary user. It was still odd that she didn't aid Hina when a Yummy appeared; Birth had no purpose outside of combat and medal collection. Satonaka had warned her when they visited the cake shop, at least, so Hina didn't rely on Birth. Her motives were unknown—Gotou thought she might be on strike for a pay raise, but Hina wasn't convinced.

Inevitably, a new Yummy surfaced during this time. Despite being a hybrid of Gamel and Mezool, it wasn't an issue—OOO had little trouble in handling it with the fire from Ankh's peacock medal. As the cell medals rained down, Satonaka finally made an appearance, scooping up the spoils with Birth's crane arm. Hina reached down to end her transformation, but Gotou's yell stopped her.

"Don't—she's an enemy!" Hina turned toward him automatically; from her peripheral vision, she caught Satonaka throwing the medals over, past OOO, and to three waiting Greeed. Hina moved her attention from Birth to the Greeed and back, unsure which was the bigger threat. Satonaka made the first move, materializing the breast cannon and wasting no time in shooting it at Hina. OOO dodged it rather easily, being familiar with its timing—the attack solidified Birth's new status as an enemy, however.

Kazari took the opportunity to separate Ankh from the group. Hina didn't have the time to worry about her brother, as Gamel and Mezool soon became her opponents. Infuriated, Gotou tried to cover her and also prevent Birth from continuing her attack on OOO. He didn't last long; Satonaka made quick work of him with a solid punch to the gut.

"Be a good boy and stay out of this, will you?" She added as he collapsed.

Birth rejoined the fray, and the Greeed began to dominate the battle soon after. Ankh put up the best fight, but in Shingo's body, he was no stronger than a Yummy; Kazari pinned him as Mezool and Gamel broke Hina's transformation and scattered her medals. If she was lucky, they wouldn't bother taking her life—Ankh didn't have that chance, so he continued his futile for both of them, Gotou managed to regain consciousness—his Birth buster had proven ineffective, but he had spotted a ridevendor nearby. More importantly, he had the skills needed to launch it at Hina's opponents, detonating the motorcycle and scattering candroids everywhere. Their opponents didn't expect such a haphazard use of Maki's inventions; their enemies distracted, Hina's group made their escape, retreating to the Cous Coussier.

* * *

"Why would Satonaka betray you?" Eiji asked not long after the trio finished explaining their glum faces to him. He had brought them lemonade, but Ankh was the only one to touch the drink, sipping it constantly as his comrades watched their ice melt.

"Money, probably" Gotou snapped bitterly, "She'd throw her own mother under a bus for the right price." Eiji's face said he clearly didn't believe that, but he held his tongue. Hina, on the other hand, had no qualms about defending her friend.

"She's not like that" She gave Gotou a pointed look.

"Really? Then why is she fighting us?" the OOO user sighed,

"I'm sure she has a reason."  
"Yeah. _Money_."

"Who _cares_." Ankh interrupted, "All that matters is how we're going to handle her."

Gotou glared at his drink, "Prototype Birth isn't capable of actual combat right now. All we have is OOO."  
"Eh?" Eiji turned to him in surprise, "Weren't you training with it?"

"That's a controlled environment—if it broke, we could stop and fix it." When this didn't seem to satisfy Eiji, Gotou added, "It's only a prototype—haphazard wiring held together with duct tape."

Eiji nodded solemnly, then suddenly cringed—an attack, but of a managable level. Something by the door caught his attention, like a sound no one else could hear. Hina felt a chill—she knew that behavior—Ankh did the same thing when he sensed an enemy. How much time did they have before he completely became a Greeed? Eiji wandered to the door, opening it curiously and peering around. Ankh was the first to bring up his sudden change in behavior.

"We can use him." he muttered.

"_What?_" Hina and Gotou hissed in unison.

"Maki is calling for Eiji's medals—sensing Yummies doesn't cause him pain."

"That—how long has he been sensing Yummies?" Hina struggled to keep her voice down—she didn't want Eiji to hear, and after their initial fight over Eiji's condition, she had decided that Ankh responded slightly better when she didn't yell at him.

Ankh grunted, "It doesn't matter. All we need to know is that he can lead us to Maki."

Before either human could stop him, the Greeed hopped off his chair and crossed to the door.

"You want to help if you can, right?"

Eiji nodded.  
"That thing you're sensing—take us to it."

"Eh? It's probably nothing, though, I mean-"  
"It's a Greeed." Ankh interrupted his protests and began steering Eiji out the door.

"Really? Wait, why?"

"Shut up and start walking." feathers figuratively ruffled, he gave Eiji a bit of a shove as Hina and Gotou caught up.

Eiji led them; like a hunting dog on a trail, his attention was primarily on his target. Even so, he would occasionally ask a question as they walked.

"What Ankh said about me sensing Greeed—is it true?"  
"We...think so." Hina's answer seemed too vague to her, too open-ended. Worse, the guilt of lying to Eiji was settling in her gut again.

"I guess we'll just find out, won't we?" Gotou quipped bitterly, mostly to himself. Eiji let out a quiet laugh—behind him, Hina saw Gotou's expression darken. Eiji was happy to help, but how would he react when they told him the whole truth? For now, though, Satonaka was the bigger priority—the later she was stopped, the more medals the Greeed would have.

* * *

If Hina had to guess, Eiji's sense for Greeed-related things was better than Ankh's—it was only when they reached a warehouse area that the latter seemed able to detect anything. It might have been due to Maki calling Eiji's medals, but it could have just as easily been their difference in cores. Eiji only had two more medals than the Greeed, but the way Ankh acted about core medals, it was probably enough. Looking from a distance, they could make out Maki and Satonaka, standing next to a truck in the open doors of one of the warehouses.

"Ankh, give me some medals and keep an eye on Eiji." The Greeed frowned at the second direction, but wordlessly handed Hina Sagouzo—not a bad choice against Birth, but whether or not she could defeat Satonaka was another matter. She strode into the warehouse, scanner in hand and medals in their slots. Gotou stayed out of sight—the plan was for him to interfere long enough to get Hina out, if things went sour.

"Oh, Hina. Wasn't expecting you." Satonaka was in work mode, according to her tone. She pulled her driver from her purse and slung it around her waist, "I'll have to fight you, though. You understand, right? Nothing personal."

Hina nodded, twisting her driver into place, "nothing personal," she repeated. Satonaka's ability to separate personal life from work—Hina respected it before, and she still respected it now. In fact, she had decided on doing the same for this fight—friend or not, neither woman was going to pull any punches, literally or girls activated their transformations at the same time, charging each other the moment they were finished. Sagouzo made the fight more even, having the same sort of strength as Birth, but Satonaka still had the upper hand—Hina wasn't trained for combat, after all. Without the Greeed, OOO could at least hold her own, but Birth had landed quite a few hits and it was starting to show.

A vicious strike from a crane arm knocked Hina out of her transformation. Gotou ran out of hiding, bombarding Satonaka with his Birth buster; she countered by swinging her crane arm at him as well. It moved faster than he could dodge, landing a rather solid hit. He wasn't seriously hurt, but the attack floored him and left him stunned. Ankh and Eiji seemed ready to join the brawl, except that they both knew they would only exasperate the unfolding catastrophe. Satonaka took her time advancing on the helpless OOO; she popped a cell medal in her driver as casually as she popped her gum. Hina finally understood what Gotou meant before, when he said Satonaka was a danger to everyone that relied on her; just how far would she go, when paid the right price? Just how much was their friendship worth?

A beeping noise from Birth's suit interrupted the tension of Satonaka's advance. She paused; Hina held her breath—if that beeping meant what she thought it did, then... With all eyes focused on her, Satonaka ended her transformation, turned around, and headed back to the warehouse. She then plopped herself down in the truck, pulled out a fashion magazine, and began leisurely perusing it, in spite of Maki's spluttering protests.

At that instant, Gotou realized that he had severely underestimated Satonaka in every way, starting with the warning she had given Hina. She delivered the message the moment she was _on _the clock, when most people would have said it _during_ their break. In other words, the alliance change was strictly a business matter, and not in her personal interest. She had also taken the day at the park off—if a conflict came up, she hadn't wanted to be pitted against Hina. Just like when the Yummy at the park ripped her skirt, her business and personal lives were colliding again. No, it was better to say that they had never truly been separate in the first place—Satonaka wasn't a machine with a switch she could flip to change modes, despite Gotou's initial opinion of her. What she _was_ was a creature of strict habit that was excellent at predicting outcomes and estimating abilities. When she took a break, she had confidence that any attacks during that time could be handled by OOO and her allies with minimal casualties. Satonaka also had the habit of reminding others when her breaks occured beforehand, so her support or lack of could be predicted—yet this break, which was moreover not at her usual time—had caught Maki unaware.

Gotou picked himself off the ground, staggering to his feet. He could have smacked himself for being so obstinate about her; her warning to Hina about support had really been for Gotou. She knew Hina would turn to him—he was supposed to have gotten the Prototype combat-ready and started training immediately. She let him use Birth in the park, rather than asking for overtime pay, to see if he had understood her message and to check his progress. After finding that Gotou had missed her cue completely, she switched plans to rile him up and give him the metaphorical kick he needed to learn to use Birth.

Gotou ran after Satonaka—she had predicted the flow of this fight ahead of time, including what he was about to do. As expected, she had taken off the Birth driver, abandoning it casually on the seat next to her. Gotou took it, strapped it on, and inserted a cell medal—thanks to her, he was ready this time. Maki extracted a pen from his pocket as Birth's transformation finished.

"A poor decision on your part, Gotou." He uncapped the pen, exposing a button, "Birth has a self-destruct sequence." To the surprise of his enemies and comrades alike, Gotou chuckled.

"You forget," he said as Maki depressed the detonator, "I've been performing maintenance since you left. Birth _had_ a self-destruct sequence."

"You could have had a beautiful end," Maki remained unphased, "very well—we shall do this the crude way."

Mezool, Gamel, and Kazari emerged from various points in the warehouse; Gotou noted this caught Satonaka's attention—she hadn't known about them. Hina managed to climb to her feet and join Birth; she glanced at Ankh for a medal change, but he was at a loss what to give her—although he was eyeing Eiji. Gotou, on the other hand, saw the situation as under control. He knew, as well as Satonaka and Maki, that Birth had a yet-unused CLAW, arguably one of its more powerful ones. Using it indoors could be a bit messy, but no one would really miss a run-down warehouse like this one, would they?

Three cell medals—Birth's popping sound as he activated them was so _satisfying_. The first was the crane arm—ranged, heavy, an all-around solid choice for offense. Next was caterpillar leg—a counterweight for the crane arm. The best was last—cutter wing. Maki had known about it, but the Greeed had not, and the flying destruction that Gotou became overwhelmed them. Hina didn't bother reactivating her transformation, watching as Gotou careened around the warehouse, swooping down on the Greeed with every pass. More often than not, Birth's crane arm or caterpillar leg caught on part of the building, knocking debris on his opponents inside. It didn't take long for the fight to migrate to open air, where Gotou continued to dominate the Greeed. The battle was only ended when a heated blast of wind knocked Birth back to land; the second Ankh had deemed the situation fit for intervention. Floating down in a flame-laced whirlwind, he gathered his comrades and aided them in an aerial retreat.

Gotou ended his transformation as he watched their opponents leave. Silently, he headed to the truck inside the warehouse and climbed in next to Satonaka. He simply sat next to her; waiting, Hina realized, for the other girl's break to end. She decided to leave, taking the two noncombatants with her—whatever happened in the truck was between the two Births.

* * *

"I would like to formally submit a request." Gotou declared the moment Satonaka closed her magazine.

"Oh? And what would your request be?" A barely-suppressed smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"That we never do this again."

"Just that?" Satonaka allowed herself an amused smile at Gotou's bewilderment.

"What do you mean?"

She continued to smile as she left the truck and started walking to the warehouse doors. Gotou hopped out of the seat and strode briskly to catch up; he realized he was still wearing the Birth driver and began to remove it.

"Satonaka." Gotou called out, offering her the driver when he was in arm's length, "You forgot this." She raised an eyebrow at it.

"Don't you want it?" Gotou flinched.

"Yes, but…"  
"'But'...?"

But what, exactly? He wanted to be Birth's user, and unlike before, he had proved that he was capable of fighting with it—so what was holding him back?

Nothing. Satonaka was telling him to do as he liked—he had just been dense about it, again. He beamed as he retracted the offered belt.

"I assume the paperwork is already filed, then?" Satonaka matched his grin; he had been slow to come around, but he could finally understand her hints.

"Just remember that I'm still your superior, Birth." Gotou chuckled.

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

As the verdict on Eiji was still to not breathe a word to him without more information, discussing the purple medals at Cous Coussier was equal parts social acrobatics and bad idea. Hina informed the Birth trio about Ankh's Greeed theory; it turned out that Kougami had come to the same conclusion—Satonaka's "working" for Maki had been a failed attempt to thwart his Greeedification. The information was new to Gotou and Date, however, much to the former's irritation. Still, all three Kougami employees maintained that Eiji was better off uninformed until they had a way to cure him. Gotou considered becoming a Greeed worse than death, which earned him a mildly offended look from Ankh. Date was concerned it might affect Eiji's actions, either putting his life at risk or speeding up the process. Satonaka abstained—she was paid to fight, not make moral decisions. Siding with Hina would only result in a stalemate anyway—as Ankh was the tiebreaker and shared the other boys' opinion, the result would be the same.

As much as Hina would have liked to protest, she was forced to table the debate; a major fashion contest was coming up, and she didn't have so much as a design sketch. She reflected on her friends' arguments as she spent the evening staring at a blank paper in her living room—normally, she designed clothes based on her model, but without one she was coming up empty-handed. Until now, Shingo had been more than happy to act as her model. Ankh, on the other hand—she re-examined the Greeed, perched uncomfortably at the table, munching on some vegetables and playing on Shingo's smartphone—no, "crude angry swagger" did not look good on a runway. She turned back to her empty page.

"Why don't you make something for Eiji?" The unexpected suggestion snapped her attention back to Ankh. He was still engrossed in the phone, absentmindedly chewing a carrot. Hina waited for him to continue; he noticed her staring and gave her a creeped-out look.

"What?" he asked when she didn't stop. She blinked a couple times.

"Didn't you say something just now?"

"No." He allowed her one last offended glance before returning to his gadget.

Shingo.

Hina didn't know how, but he had managed to speak to her, if only briefly. And if her brother suggested Eiji as his replacement, then Eiji would be his replacement. Her model selected, she began sketching, the designs coming easily now.


	6. Chapter 6

It didn't take long for Hina's coworkers to notice her rapidly deteriorating health; between fighting and sewing, she had distressingly little time to sleep. Cooking and eating were similar luxuries—more often than she'd admit, her only meal for the day was the one she ate during her break at work. Ankh, on the other hand, was relatively vocal about his lack of diet, despite prowling the apartment's kitchen and snacking on anything he found. It wasn't long before his grievances fell on Eiji's ears.

"Wait, so when was the last meal you two ate?" The human had just finished putting the day's special on the table for Ankh—a sandwich and a hearty vegetable stew. The Greeed wasted no time tearing into the food.

"I dunno," he managed between bites, "yesterday... Breakfast?"

Eiji sighed and glanced across the cafe at Ankh's keeper. Hina put on a friendly enough face, taking orders and showing people to the appropriate tables, but if what Ankh said was correct, she was ready to collapse.

As soon as her customers were seated, Eiji pulled Hina off to the side.

"You're going on break."

"Eh? But I just started my shift."

"Don't care," he took her by the shoulders and started walking her towards his room, "you're going to eat something and sleep." Tired or not, she continued to protest.

"But rush hour-"

"This place is overstaffed and we both know it." Hina opened her mouth to say more, but Eiji cut her off, "one more word, and I'll tell Chiyoko that she's overworking you—don't think she hasn't noticed how worn-out you look." That shut Hina's mouth; unable to think of a comeback, she settled for a frustrated pout. Eiji met it with a smile.

"You'll wake me up if you need me, right?"

"Yeah sure." Eiji's dismissive tone said he'd be more likely to draft Ankh into work. Hina sighed, resigning herself to her fate; sleeping now meant more time to sew later. As Eiji continued to usher her along, she realized that for all her frantic work, she hadn't actually asked if he'd help.

"Ankh told you about the fashion competition, right? I was wondering, if—well—if you would be the model for my designs."

"Hmm… Only on one condition."

"Which is…?"  
"You stop working yourself to death." With a chuckle, he gently pushed Hina across the threshold of the door. "I'll be back with food."

It was a bit awkward to be told to sleep in her coworker's bed, but she knew as well as Eiji that if he sent her home, she'd return to working rather than recuperate. Leisurely, she took off the outer layers of her costume, along with her footwear. The theme this week was from a small desert country she hadn't really heard of, although Eiji and Chiyoko had apparently visited it during their travels. Hina's outfit was composed of a few layered robes, a sash, and some jewelry—she removed everything except for one robe, laying the discarded layers neatly on a nearby chair. She was almost finished when Eiji returned to deliver a generous portion of food. It was gone not long after he left, and Hina spent the remainder of her shift sleeping.

—-

With only a few days left till the fashion competition, Ankh found himself in a precarious position. Typically, Hina treated the Greeed with the patience reserved for a child—at least, according to Shingo—but between the stress of her outfit remaining incomplete and Yummies occupying her precious time, she had transformed into a powder keg of fury, and it seemed that anything Ankh did set her off. His usual habit of munching was too distracting, no matter where he was eating; his manner of speech was even more unacceptable. Remaining silent wasn't an option, either, as even the meekest glance in the human's direction was interpreted as condescending judgement of—what, exactly, Ankh wasn't actually sure. She had never given his opinions weight, nor had he bothered to express any in regard to her clothes-making, let alone now with her rapidly decreasing fuse.

Frustratingly, Shingo was useless in helping Ankh escape his predicament. The human had never seen his sister this bad—she normally paced herself in such a way as to finish her design a week or so before the competition. He suggested Ankh give her a back rub, but sharing a bed with his knockoff seemed like a safer idea to the Greeed. He almost wanted his lousier half to show up, just to see how quickly Hina would tear him apart—barehanded—for interrupting her ability to think.

The other Ankh didn't show, however, and Hina inevitably became worse as the deadline approached. After a night of literally tiptoeing about only to have Hina order him to "stop thinking, I can hear you", Ankh had finally had enough. He slunk out of the apartment as fast as he could manage—but not quickly enough for Hina, he mused—and made tracks for the Cous Coussier. Eiji's room had a window—and if Ankh couldn't get in, he'd find and pester Kougami's group—including Gotou, who seemed to take every opportunity to remind everyone of his opinions on Ankh's kind.

It turned out that Eiji had left his window open, a small bit of fortune in an otherwise rough night. Ankh was less than co-ordinated in his entry, however, tripping on the windowsill and taking the miscellaneous objects on top of the nightstand below it down with him as he crashed to the floor. The impact woke Eiji, along with everyone in the figurative neighborhood.

"Ankh?" the Greeed's golden locks shining in the window from the streetlight gave away his identity, "Why are you climbing in my window?" Eiji's conversation partner made an irritated noise as he untangled himself from the toppled furniture and attempted to salvage his dignity. "Did something happen to Hina?"

Ankh scoffed at the sudden concern in Eiji's voice, "If every Greeed attacked her right now, I'd fear for _their_ safety."

"Ah." Eiji's tone switched to one used at campfires and sleepovers, "stressing over the fashion show?" Ankh let out a snide laugh at how gross an understatement Eiji had made, then started for the kitchen; he desperately needed an ice-pop. Eiji followed him, "it's the day after tomorrow, right? Will she be okay?" Ankh shrugged in response as he plundered the freezer. Eiji frowned slightly as the Greeed mercilessly tore the wrapper off the ice-pop and took a gluttonous bite.

"Not my problem." He declared as he returned to Eiji's room; finding a spot to nest was clearly his highest priority.

Ankh had a point, despite his attitude—neither of them could really aid Hina in her endeavors. Chiyoko, on the other hand—she made the outfits for the shop, and was thoroughly supportive of Hina's career. She should still be awake, as well—Eiji popped his head into his bedroom,

"Ankh, call Hina—tell her to bring everything here," and left before the Greed could recover from his shock enough to splutter a protest. Something deep inside Eiji began to stir, a part of him that he was certain had died during his last journey abroad. It was the part of him that thought he could change the world—that he was a special catalyst bringing happiness to others.

The part of him under the misconception that he mattered.

The thought left as suddenly as it appeared—Eiji didn't have time to argue with it right now. He continued down the hall to Chiyoko's room and knocked on the door.

—-

Hina arrived a half hour later, revitalized by the hope named Chiyoko, master of the sewing machine. Ankh was appalled by the difference in her demeanor; she was nothing like his descriptions. Eiji didn't doubt the Greeed's word in the same way he didn't doubt that a venom-laced comment from Ankh could set Hina off again. Before the Greeed could say something they'd all regret, Eiji had practically shoved an ice-pop down his throat. That quickly turned into his role for the night—keeping Ankh out of the girls' way while they worked. He didn't mind—Eiji had become rather skilled at pacifying the childish creature during his shifts, and aside from Hina taking some initial measurements of his body, he couldn't contribute much to her project.

Not long after the girls holed up in Chiyoko's bedroom, Eiji retired to his, dragging Ankh with him. The latter settled into the wooden loft almost immediately, commandeering a red sheet as an excuse for a mattress. Unsure how Ankh could possibly find the arrangement comfortable, but satisfied that the Greeed was no longer seething, Eiji returned to his bed and tried to sleep. The thought from earlier tried to make a comeback; he ignored it, but his chest started aching soon after. He grit his teeth and did his best to bear it—his doctors had come to the conclusion that it was somatic, pain brought on by his mental and emotional state. It made sense enough, except for the timing. It should have started months ago, in the desert—when Alfreed was killed in front of him, just out of his arm's reach. His thoughts, similarly, had had no reason to surface again.

Was that really true, he wondered; he had only been running from his guilt—he was no less guilty, so why should he hate himself any less? Eiji readjusted his sleeping position, as if to readjust his thoughts. The self-contempt persisted; no matter how he looked at it, her death was on his hands. Throwing his family's money around as though it could cure the world, inadvertently lighting the fuse on a bomb called war—the very war that claimed his friend's life. He could play the seasoned traveler until he died, but it wouldn't change the fact that he was scum that didn't dare leave the city anymore, let alone the country.

He glanced at the loft, seeking a distraction—he was losing this round of pain vs. baseless optimism. Had his roommate been able to fall asleep on his wooden excuse for a bed? He was a bit surprised when his eyes met Ankh's—the latter's were wild, like a cornered predator. It was probably the dark, or Eiji's vision, or the Greeed's generally angry expression, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Ankh was wary of him. Him, a human with no real reason to stay on the planet, laying harmlessly in his bed, reflecting on horrible truths—Ankh was wary of _that_? Yet, the idea wouldn't leave him.

"Having problems sleeping?" Eiji managed in his best small-talk voice. Ankh snorted in disgust and rolled to face the wall—at least he was no longer on alert. The conversation over, Eiji resigned himself to counting ceiling tiles and trying not to think.

—-

The store was closed the next day, as two-thirds of its staff were completely exhausted. Eiji took the opportunity to scrub the place thoroughly, stopping to cook when Ankh got hungry, or one of the girls woke up. The day passed peacefully into the next: the day of Hina's design competition. The lady of honor rose from her bed a refreshed phoenix, in stark contrast to their residential grouchy bird. For all the time Hina had invested, the actual event was a meager flash. As a bit of an in-joke, Eiji imitated OOO's battle-stances when he needed to pose. He heard Hina stifling giggles when he got to Tajador, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to crack a smile; Chiyoko had instructed him to think "murder" when he strut down the runway—an impossible order, but he at least did his best to look serious.

The worst part was next—waiting. It took only a few minutes for the other models to walk the runway, and not much longer for the judges to make their decisions, but Eiji could have sworn an entire week had passed—he couldn't imagine what it was like for Hina. Finally, he was called to the stage with the other models; they lined up alongside their designers to hear the results. They were shocking—Hina had taken first. Eiji had wanted her to place, sure, but with how much of her time had been taken by her part-time job or fighting, he had deemed winning an impossible goal.

Hina was just as stunned, as her friends gathered to congratulate her. She smiled brightly, but Ankh's irritated expression stung more than she had expected. She did her best to ignore him—Shingo would smile enough for both of them, when she told him about this and everything else he had missed. Focusing on Chiyoko and Eiji—who was excited enough for five people—a voice from behind surprised her.

"Congratulations."

Chiyoko looked surprised, but Eiji looked as if he was watching a martyr returning home. Hina quickly understood, as she turned to the speaker—it was Ankh. He had the same expression as when he suggested Eiji as a model a few days ago; suddenly everyone was staring at him and he didn't know why. His eyes were watering—a tear escaped and ran down his cheek; he wiped it instinctively, looking away from Hina and the others to examine his hand. It was wet. Why was it _wet_? He couldn't understand, and it showed on his face.

"Ankh..." Hina started, then realized she didn't have a clue what to tell him; her brother was clearly almost recovered and the Greeed could no longer hide it—nothing short of 'you can have my brother's body' would be reassuring for him. He glanced up at her, an almost childlike desperation to hold on to Shingo's body reflected in his eyes—she could evict him right then and he knew it. Hina caved—what was one more day? She put on a brilliant smile, "let's get ice-pops to celebrate." The effect on Ankh was immediate—she had chosen the perfect thing to say.

—-

The group stopped at a nearby park for the frozen snacks; Chiyoko headed back to open the cafe after the first round of ice-pops, saying she needed to prep for a special event. Eiji and Hina stayed, getting a second round for themselves and Ankh. They were halfway through their treats when the sound of screaming drifted their way; Ankh and Eiji perked up at the same time—a Yummy. Hina equipped the OOO driver, ice-pop still in her mouth as Ankh casually tossed her Tatoba. She took off running as soon as she had the medals, Eiji and Ankh in tow.

The Yummy this time was a unicorn, of all things. Hina frowned as she took one last bite and discarded her ice-pop, activating her transformation; this Yummy wasn't in any of the familiar animal groups associated with her enemies. It was, however, a conspicuous purple color—the sixth Greeed, Maki. She attacked with the intention to distract as soon as she was in range; these Yummies' behaviors were still unknown, so she couldn't afford to rush in wildly and blindly.

Her opponent wasn't overwhelmingly strong, but her tentative strikes were neither pushing it back nor forcing it to reveal its hand. She switched to a more aggressive onslaught, and managed to knock the Yummy away—right next to her non-combatant friends. Ankh assumed a battle stance—he might be able to buy enough time for Hina to cross the distance between them. The Yummy was more interested in Eiji, extending one of its hands toward him and ignoring the Greeed between made a split-second decision to knock the human out of harm's way; attacking the Yummy wasn't guaranteed to stop it in time, and while Eiji may have been becoming a Greeed, he was still human right now, and Hina wasn't willing to risk his safety.

This, unfortunately, was the moment the Yummy showed its unique ability. When its hand touched OOO, Hina felt a chill propagate through her body and found she couldn't move.

"What is your dream?" The Yummy asked, as Hina's transformation shattered.

"No..." She murmured; an instinctive feeling of dread seeped into the very core of her being as the outfit she had designed for Eiji materialized above her. The Yummy grabbed the jacket from the air.

"You should dream at night" it proclaimed, ripping the material cleanly in two.

A vicious scream tore through the air like the Yummy had torn through her design;

"No!" Hina watched in a daze as Ankh punched the Yummy with all the strength he had in his left arm, then stare at his own fist in confusion. Shingo again—why was he so upset? Hina was fine, after all, wasn't she? The Yummy scoffed briefly at the pathetic assault before batting Hina's brother—and Ankh—away and simply walking off.

"Hina! Hina, are you alright?" Eiji frantically grabbed her by the shoulders, checking her for injuries as Ankh picked himself off the ground.

"Yeah, I'm completely fine." She turned to leave, not noticing that she stepped on the remains of her design. Ankh turned to Eiji as they watched her go.

"Something's wrong with her."

"I could say the same about you." Ankh gave the human a bewildered look, but he hadn't noticed Shingo's tears on his cheeks—they had trickled out when he punched the Yummy. Eiji sighed and moved to wipe the the other man's face, "honestly, Ankh..." The Greeed recoiled from his touch with an irritated glare before clearing his cheeks roughly with his forearm.

"This is all your fault, you know," Ankh snapped; his foul mood fueled by his new, uncharacteristic outbursts.

"What do you mean?"

The Greeed made a dismissive noise and followed Hina. Eiji called after him, striding quickly to catch up.

"Answer my question, Ankh." The Greeed rolled his eyes.

"If you just left whenever a fight started, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"She's acting a little weird, sure, but didn't she say she was fine?"

"Don't tell me—you think a Yummy can be harmless." Ankh's mocked, his lips twisted into a smirk; Eiji frowned.

"They're born from desires, though. Not everyone-"

Ankh's laughter cut him off. "Yummies are distorted, exaggerated, unsatiable incarnations of the desires they're born from." he sounded both proud of and disgusted by this trait, "No matter how noble or innocent humans think the desire is, the Yummy will _always_ be malevolent." He gave Eiji a pointed glare, "Never forget that."

Eiji stopped walking and watched the Greeed follow Hina. Ankh was right about it being his fault; whatever the Yummy had just done to her should have been done to him, and they didn't know what the effects were yet. He remembered that he was still holding the ice-pop from earlier and examined its status—rapidly turning into a mess, much like the day's events. Absentmindedly he took a bite—cold. Eiji checked the color—blue—and tried to remember what that tasted like as the ice chunk melted in his mouth; how much longer would he be able to pretend-taste like this, he wondered. Eiji resumed following Ankh; he didn't try to catch up this time.

—-

Calling Hina's changed behavior "weird" was an understatement gross enough to be disgusting. No matter how Ankh prodded her verbally, she didn't respond, taking a determined route back to their apartment; when they arrived, she locked herself in her room without a word. Ankh gave her door a repulsed glare. Shingo wasn't helping, having become a veritable explosion of panic and worry in the Greeed's mind—his instincts were right, as far as Ankh was concerned. He had played off the situation when talking to Eiji, but this might have been the worst thing that could happen to the Greeed, just short of being absorbed by his other self.

And right now, he couldn't afford to not know what state Hina was in behind that locked door. Shingo perked up at this idea, giving him the best way to break open the lock; Ankh made a dismissive noise—he had been planning to attack it that way, knowledge or not. He brought up Shingo's leg and kicked the door, right next to the knob. It slammed open, revealing Hina, surrounded by a cloth explosion not visually unlike the one from a few days ago. This was a destructive explosion, though, based on the scissors in Hina's hand and the desperate way with which she was shredding the clothing she held.

It took Ankh a moment to remember how to speak—and more importantly, how to shove Shingo's consciousness into a corner where it couldn't overwhelm him with its stupid human emotions.

"Hey-" he grabbed and shook the girl by the shoulders, "Hina! _Hey_!" he heard the front door open—Eiji had followed him, apparently.

"Ankh? Is Hina okay?"

Ankh responded with an annoyed grunt and let go of Hina as Eiji entered the room. She responded to her friend's presence, for whatever ungodly reason.

"Eiji?" she turned to him, "What do I do?" the newcomer took in the scene quickly, Hina's murdered designs limp in her arms and scattered about her like flower petals, the offending weapon in her hand.

"I'm sure we can do… something… with this?" he tried not to grimace—they could stuff a pillow with the cloth scraps, but not much else.

"What I used to love-" Hina shook her head sadly as her eyes desperately sook an answer from the other human, "-I don't enjoy anymore. What should I do, Eiji?"

Eiji opened his mouth to respond, but found that he couldn't—he was the same, after all; his dream of wandering the world to help others had been blown up in front of him, leaving him to wander a different way. Without a response, the hope in Hina's eyes faded and took her consciousness with it. Ankh caught her instinctively before she hit the floor. He clung to handfuls of her clothing to prevent his hands from shaking; Eiji couldn't tell if it was from Shingo's brotherly concern or Ankh's panicked distress.

—-

The Greeed didn't say a word during the ambulance ride to the hospital, nor when they were finally allowed to see Hina, where Ankh stood at her bedside. Eiji would have thought the Greeed was furious with him, except that his expression was the same as when Hina fainted—somewhere between cornered animal and emotionally numb. Eiji tried putting his hand on the other man's shoulder, both surprised and worried when he succeeded.

"H-Hey, um…" he started, unsure whether the person he was touching was Ankh or Shingo. Either way, he didn't respond. Eiji trailed off, but left his hand where it was; he couldn't possibly apologize properly, but if he could at least comfort one of the two in Shingo's body, he would try. After some time had passed without a word, he gave Shingo's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'll go contact Gotou about this." Eiji muttered and left the room.


End file.
